Inès Chenouf
Redshirt sophomore Hayden Hidlay wrestles Duke sophomore Benjamin Anderson on Friday, Jan. 25 at Reynolds Coliseum. The Wolfpack won 30-12.
The No. 9 NC State wrestling team had two big wins on Nov. 23 against No. 15 Cornell and Binghamton. In its first away matches, the Wolfpack (6-0) won 16 of the 20 individual matches in New York.
NC State faced Cornell first and won 25-9. After four matches, the Pack did not allow a single point, winning decisively.
The first match was key for the Pack, with redshirt freshman Trent Hidlay facing No. 3 Ben Darmstadt. Hidlay won the match with a decisive takedown in the last 30 seconds, scoring three team points.
The team eventually went down 6-3. Sophomore Deonte Wilson then broke a 1-1 tie with a takedown in the last seconds, tying the team scores to 6-6.
Redshirt junior Tariq Wilson began the shutout for the team, keeping Cornell at 9 points as a team. After the big win at Cornell, the Wolfpack made the short drive over to Binghamton, where it won 28-9.
“A lot of good matches across the board,” said head coach Pat Popolizio told NC State Athletics. “Some that we needed to get up for and overcome a little bit of the travel from leaving Cornell to here and the guys stepped up.”
Sophomore Tyrie Houghton won the first match 5-1, bringing the team score to 3-0 with a reversal and takedown while adding the ride time for the final point.
The Pack would then once again fall 6-3 when redshirt freshman Jakob Camacho held a 3-0 advantage in takedowns.
Binghamton climbed back to 9-9 before Wilson started another rally, not allowing another point to the opponent for the rest of the match. Six wrestlers would not allow a point to Binghamton.
Trent Hidlay went on to face No. 9 Lou DePrez and won 2-1. After a 1-1 tie, they would go into overtime, where Hidley scored ride time in the first 30 seconds and would score an escape in the last 30 seconds of the match. This marked his second top-5 win of the game.
“We knew this was not going to be an easy weekend for him,” Popolizio said. “So that’s why there was a lot of excitement around it because he wrestled two really good guys that you’re going to see deep into the NCAA tournament.”
The Wolfpack wrestling team will head to Las Vegas, Nevada to participate in the Cliff Keen Invitational on Dec. 6-7.