The Wolverine

April 2013

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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  big ten/NCAA championships: Wrestling Michigan Hopes To Build On Solid Big Ten Outing Michigan, which entered the conference wrestling tournament ranked No.  18 in the nation, fin‑ ished sixth overall with 75 total points and nine individual place winners March 10‑11 in Cham‑ paign, Ill. A young U-M squad, which fea‑ tures a staggering 23 underclass‑ men, did not have a single grap‑ pler place in the top three during the meet, but had seven wrestlers who either matched or outplaced their seed — including eight who triumphed over opponents they had lost to previously this season. As a team, they ranked higher than No. 12 Nebraska (61 points), No.  39 Purdue (38 points) and Redshirt junior Sean Boyle was the Wolverines' Wisconsin (37 points), all of which top performer at the league meet, placing fourth defeated the Wolverines in dual in the 125-pound weight class. photo courtesy michigan athletic media relations meets during the regular season. "We are taking quite a few positives away," assistant coach Donny Pritzlaff said. "Only two guys didn't wrestle to their seed, and we turned around a lot of matches over the weekend. That's good to see for your program. "They were prepared, they knew that they were prepared, and they wrestled with a lot more confidence. Sixth place isn't the standard of our program, but it is a step in the right direction. "The guys are starting to believe more, and I think they're starting to see that what they're doing is paying off. It's important for them to see the benefit of all the hard work." That hard work failed to produce a podium contender after the first day of bat‑ tle in the smash-mouth tournament, which featured four of the top six schools in the country and seven of the top 14, but the Maize and Blue sent nine to the consolation bracket heading into the tournament's second day. "We definitely pulled together and wrestled pretty close to the best of our abili‑ ties on that first day," redshirt junior captain Dan Yates said. "The second day I felt

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