Mankato, Minn. – The No. 8 Minnesota State Mavericks completed the home portion of their schedule on Thursday night as they defeated the visiting Southwest Minnesota State Mustangs 31-6 on Senior Night at Bresnan Arena.
Senior Andy Forstner’s (No. 4, 125-lbs) final home match wasn’t a long one as he jumped out to an early 2-0 lead with a takedown at the :30 mark before pinning Travis Borchert four seconds later (:34) to earn his second win by fall of the season and give the Mavericks an early 6-0 lead.
Fellow senior Ben Becker (No. 6, 174-lbs) also made the most of his final home match earning a 12-2 major decision win over Zach Coates. Despite leading just 2-0 after the first period, Becker would record four takedowns in the matches final two periods and earn 3:35 of riding time en route to victory.
Junior Aaron Norgren (No. 6, 184-lbs) earned a win by sudden victory over CD Johnson giving him four consecutive wins but not before some coach related controversy. Johnson’s takedown of Norgren gave him a 4-3 lead with just a minute remaining before Southwest Minnesota State’s coach received a misconduct penalty for coming onto the mat which evened the score at 4-4. Norgren would go on to earn a two-point takedown with just eight seconds remaining in sudden victory which gave him a 6-4 win by decision.
Breaking his two-match losing streak was the No. 7 ranked junior Pat Mahan. Mahan would go on to earn two three-point near-falls and two two-point near-falls before defeating Martin Hagen by a 15-0 technical fall at the 5:28 mark.
Four other wrestlers would go on to earn wins for the Mavericks as sophomore Robby Fisher (141-lbs) won a 4-2 decision, sophomore Jesse Westphal (149-lbs) won a 2-1 decision, junior John Makabe (157-lbs) won an 8-5 decision, and freshman Brendan Eichmann (165-lbs) won a 19-9 major decision.
With the win the Mavericks improve to 9-4 overall and 5-1 in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference action. The loss drops the Mustangs to 5-4-1 overall and 1-4 in the NSIC.
The Mavericks will close out their regular season next week as they travel to St. Cloud State to take on the No. 3 ranked Huskies. The dual is scheduled to start at 7:00 pm on Thursday, Feb. 17.
-30-
