Forty-two hours after squaring off with Michigan, the Maryland wrestling team took to the mat Sunday against Michigan State. Much like Friday night in Ann Arbor, an inconsistent performance led to a defeat.

The Terps suffered a 19-17 loss on what redshirt senior 133-pounder Billy Rappo described as a “very ugly day.”

“We didn’t perform well, not only today, but also this weekend,” Rappo said. “On a whole, collectively, we’ve got to figure some stuff out.”

The Terps dropped to 2-9 in duals with the loss and remain winless in Big Ten play. The Spartans (3-6), meanwhile, picked up their first conference win. It was a match between two teams at the bottom of the Big Ten, one the Terps felt they had a good chance in.

“Michigan State on paper is a team we can beat and we have beaten,” sophomore heavyweight Youssif Hemida said Friday night. “We just have to go out there and wrestle hard.”

Still, coach Kerry McCoy spoke Friday about how Michigan State improved since beating the Terps, 26-10, last season. With that in mind, he said it would be a “tough battle.”

The Terps fell behind, 4-0, to start the dual and never led. Maryland did not have consecutive wins in weight classes until the final two matches.

The Terps who won were Rappo, 149-pounder Alfred Bannister, 165-pounder Patrick Gerish, 197-pounder David-Brian Whisler and Hemida. Bannister remains unbeaten at 11-0 thanks to an escape and then a takedown in the waning seconds, while Hemida stretched his dual match win streak to six.

McCoy spoke to the importance of Bannister’s and Hemida’s success, and Rappo echoed that Sunday. He said the Terps have been on the losing end of a lot of close matches, but Bannister especially has done a solid job of holding off his opponents.

“You’ve got to win the close matches,” Rappo said. “We’ve been in way too many close matches this year, and we haven’t really been pulling them out. We’ve got to figure something out, got to change the way we do something to get those wins.”

McCoy believes shoring up its miscues is part of the team’s struggles but added there has to be a different mindset in order for the Terps to prevail in matches down the stretch.

“It’s a big thing for everybody to put a premium on winning the dual meet as a team,” McCoy said. “That’s going to be the big difference for those guys.”

“We’ve got to find some grit,” Rappo added. “We’ve got to dig down deep and find a way to win.”