Herbert becomes Northwestern's first individual champion since Jack Griffin won his crown in 1990. The fourth-place finish matches NU's finishes in 1932 and 1990 for the highest ever in program history.
"We came from 50th in 2004 and now we're taking home some hardware this year," Herbert said. "That was our goal and why we all wanted to come to Northwestern to wrestle for Timmy (Cysewski)".
"We have a lot of individuals with different personalities," head coach Tim Cysewski said. "But they know that winning is important and good things happen when you have that mentality."
Northwestern opened the session in fifth place, but needed to win one more championship than Oklahoma State, who sat in fourth place with two wrestlers in the finals.
NU won one out of two, but received help from Penn and Iowa to earn the program-best finish. Penn's Matt Valenti topped OSU's Coleman Scott at 133 lbs. and Iowa's Mark Perry handed Johny Hendricks his first loss of the season at 165. Herbert's win vaulted the 'Cats into fourth, ahead of four-time defending champion OSU.
Northwestern earned four All-America honors for the first time since 1990 as Dustin Fox (Galion, Ohio/Galion) finished third at heavyweight, Lang finished second and Mike Tamillow (Oak Park, Ill./Fenwick) finished seventh at 197 lbs.
Herbert came out like a man with a plan in his 184-pound championship match, scoring a takedown over Iowa State's Varner a little less than one minute into the opening frame. He rode Varner for the rest of the period.
Herbert was down to start the second and he escaped quickly to extend his lead to 3-0. He added another takedown in the second and Varner received a point when Herbert pushed him out of bounds near the end of the period.
No more points were scored in the third and the riding time advantage gave Herbert the 6-1 decision.
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