NW wrestling squad hits wall versus Midland

On Thursday night, the Northwestern wrestling squad suffered a humbling setback against Midland, falling hard 42-4.
The lone bright spot was senior Josiah Simburger’s 14-4 win at 141-lbs.
Junior Pedro Ruiz started out the meet with a 6-5 loss at 125-lbs.
At 165-lbs. Jesse McCann was in a high-scoring match-up, but fell 15-7.
Following him onto the mat was senior David Carter, who had the last best shot for a Raider win, but ran out of time and was defeated 3-2.
Senior Nic Leither found himself in an usual place after losing his 197-lbs. match 14-5, just his fourth blemish of the year.
Last Saturday, the NW team qualified another wrestler for the nationals  at the Briar Cliff open, as freshman Tyler Schaefer placed eighth in the 157 lbs. class to punch his ticket.
Sophomore Ariel Bosque, another member of the 157 lbs. weight class, also performed well, placing second in the event.
“I felt pretty good this weekend,” Bosque said. “I beat a lot of kids I wasn’t supposed to beat. When you have nothing to lose, you kind of go all out.”
Bosque said the Raiders were pleased with their performances as a whole.
“We only had one loss in our first round, so we did fairly well,” Bosque said. “A lot of guys said it was ‘Throw City,’ which was a lot of fun. We had six or seven throws . It was important for us to get some good mat time. It will be good to get a better seed at the qualifier.”
Several of Northwestern’s wrestlers rested, having already qualified, as the Raiders prepare for their qualifier match. But the Raiders won’t be resting on their laurels.
“We still need to work on bottom mat work,” Bosque said. “We tend to kind of do one move in a series of moves. That’s what we will be working on this next week.”