The Maryland wrestling team’s tough regular season ended Saturday night. The Terps had two final chances to a win but failed to capitalize.
The Terps (2-16, 0-9 Big Ten) lost, 23-20, to Rider in the afternoon before dropping their final dual match of the season to Drexel, 20-12. It marked their 12th consecutive loss as they begin preparation for the Big Ten championships.
Despite the defeats, coach Kerry McCoy noted positives in certain individual performances. Two Terps managed wins in both matches, while four others notched one victory.
“Some good things to go in and balance out the not-so-good,” McCoy said.
The Terps jumped out to a 15-3 lead over the Broncs thanks to consecutive pins from 141-pound redshirt sophomore Ryan Diehl and 149-pound redshirt sophomore Adam Whitesell.
“Ryan and Adam getting back-to-back pins built some good momentum for us,” McCoy said. “It put us in a good position to win the dual.”
However, Rider won five straight matches before a forfeit in the heavyweight class gave the Terps six more points to cut the gap to three.
In the later match, Maryland and Drexel traded wins in the first six bouts before the Dragons won four straight in the 165-, 174-, 184- and 197- pound classes. Maryland heavyweight Youssif Hemida earned a win in sudden victory to give the Terps three extra points.
Hemida and Diehl were the only Maryland grapplers to earn wins in both matches. The Terps got one win each from Whitesell, 125-pound junior Michael Beck, 133-pound redshirt senior Billy Rappo and 157-pound redshirt junior Justin Alexander.
McCoy said the wins are a promising sign for the futures of Hemida, Rappo and Diehl, who has only wrestled in five duals this season.
“Those are guys that are putting themselves in a good position to perform well at the conference tournament,” McCoy said. “Hopefully, a couple other guys can build off that momentum, step up, score some points and put themselves in a position to win some matches.”
Despite the few solid individual performances, the Terps haven’t won a dual match since beating George Mason on Dec. 9.
The team, however, has been building toward the coming weeks throughout the season.
Maryland will have a week off from competition before traveling to Bloomington, Indiana, for the Big Ten championships, starting March 4. That’s when McCoy wants his grapplers to ignore their regular-season woes and focus on improving for their most important competitions of the season.
“When you get a chance to perform at a high level, you’ve got to look at that,” McCoy said. “Then the negative things are tough to swallow, but we’ve just got to keep moving forward.”
