Conference play began with a blowout Wednesday—and not in favor of the Blue Devils.
No. 4 N.C. State traveled 25 miles from Raleigh to deal Duke a 25-point defeat at Card Gymnasium, winning the ACC opener for both squads, 34-9. Although the Blue Devils entered the match 2-1 in duals against the Wolfpack under head coach Glen Lanham, N.C. State avenged an 18-17 loss from last season in Raleigh with its victory.
“No one is going to feel sorry for us, that’s the bottom line,” Lanham told GoDuke.com. “These guys won it. We beat them at their place last year. They felt like that derailed them a little bit, so they wanted to come in and prove a point…. I felt like they felt like they had more to prove tonight and they wanted to wrestle hard and some of our guys didn’t and it definitely showed.”
The Wolfpack (12-0, 1-0 in the ACC) dominated from the start and improved their season-opening win streak to a new program-best mark. N.C. State was awarded a quick 6-0 lead by forfeit after Duke’s Thayer Atkins could not compete at 125 pounds due to a concussion sustained earlier in the season. With action on the mat beginning at 133 pounds, the Wolfpack’s Jamal Morris beat the first-period buzzer with a pin before No. 3 Kevin Jack recorded a 6-2 decision at 141 pounds against Zach Finesilver to give the visitors a 15-0 lead.
From there, N.C. State did not look back—its grapplers scored bonus points in their final four victories of the night.
No. 6 Tommy Gantt and Nicky Hall captured major decisions at 157 and 174 pounds, respectively, before No. 15 Pete Renda recorded a 17-1 technical fall against Duke redshirt senior Trey Adamson at 184 pounds. In the final match of the night, two-time defending NCAA heavyweight champion and top-ranked Nick Gwiazdowski put the exclamation point on the Wolfpack victory, pinning Brendan Walsh in the first period to extend his NCAA-best winning streak to 72 matches.
“We knew we were going to go in the hole at [125 pounds] not wrestling, and then at [133 pounds] you got a kid that you pull out of redshirt. That’s tough,” Lanham said. “I don’t know really what it was. We had a good week of practice. We thought we had these guys scouted pretty [well], and it just didn’t go our way tonight.”
Despite the loss, the Blue Devils (0-2, 0-1) held to form in their ranked matches. No. 20 Mitch Finesilver, No. 12 Jake Faust and No. 5 Conner Hartmann each had their arms raised in the center of the mat as the only three Duke wrestlers to seize victories.
In his first match of the year as a ranked grappler, Finesilver improved to 2-0 in dual competition at 149 pounds behind a strong second period against Beau Donahue. Trailing 4-2 after one, the Blue Devil sophomore scored two two-point near falls and another four-point near fall to take a 10-4 lead into the final round of competition. Two more points in the third period gave Finesilver the 12-7 decision.
Faust recorded a 5-0 shutout for his first dual victory of the year at 165 pounds following a takedown in each of the first two periods and an escape in the third against redshirt junior Lee Davis. The redshirt sophomore was expected to compete against No. 4 Max Rohskopf for a top-20 matchup, but N.C. State head coach Pat Popolizio opted to hold Rohskopf out of the dual with a 19-3 lead entering the weight.
In the only matchup of the night between ranked grapplers, Hartmann dispatched No. 17 Michael Boykin 6-0 at 197 pounds. The two wrestlers fought through a lot of hand-fighting in the first period, but Hartmann scored a takedown at the buzzer to gain a 2-0 lead that lasted through the second period. In the final frame, the redshirt senior recorded an escape and another takedown—coupled with extensive riding time—to capture Duke’s second shutout victory.
The Blue Devils will return to competition Saturday in Pittsburgh at the Pitt Duals against No. 25 Pittsburgh, Edinboro and Harvard looking for their first dual win of the season in the all-day event.
“Obviously there is a lot to learn from the dual. The technique’s there, we’ve just got to compete better and that’s what we didn’t do tonight,” Lanham said. “It’s back to the drawing board…. We’ve got 48 hours to get ready for Pitt Duals. No one is going to feel sorry. We’ve got to go up there and take care of our business and just wrestle hard.”
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