ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted January 15 Posted January 15 A DAY IN HISTORY It is February 12, 2012. You check to see what's playing at the theaters, and it's all trash. The top four movies are Safe House, The Vow, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and perhaps the most disappointing film ever released, Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace. You put the newspaper down in disgust. There's nothing happening on Snapchat, so you turn on the radio just in time to hear Casey Kasem's American's Top Forty as it runs through the top three in ascending order: Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson and Adele with Set Fire to the Rain. You put a hammer through the radio. It was made for cheap in Korea like your car and The Simpsons. And you try to remember when America made things, and then you remember that America makes great wrestlers, and you'll get to see some of them today as the #6 ILLINI are in the NWCA National Duals Regional Finals. They face #5 Cornell in cold and ugly Ithaca, New York. The dual starts out with that new Freshman sensation Jesse Delgado facing off against All American Frank Perelli of Cornell. Delgado is coming off an upset of #1 Matt McDonough in Iowa City, so you have your fingers crossed. You keep them crossed because this is a Flo stream. And there's the 8-3 win for the Cali Kid! He might turn out to be pretty good some day. At 133, All American BJ Futrell absolutely mauls an Arujau with a tech fall. Things are shaping up. You almost forget that Adele has the #1 song in America and that Jar Jar Binks exists. The team from ILLINOIS needed to win three of the four matches to start off the meet. They do. They needed that because the Big Red (named after chewing gum?) have #1 Kyle Dake, #5 Steve Bosak and #1 Cam Simaz later in their lineup. Jackson Morse actually takes Dake down in that match and the excitement is through the roof! He ends up losing 4-6, but there is no bonus. There is a window of opportunity here. All Americans Conrad Polz and Jordan Blanton win their matches for ILLINOIS at 165 and 174. But now we've hit the real tough stretch of the dual, as #5 Bosak and #1 Cam Simaz are warming up. But Head Coach Jim Heffernan pulls a fast one. He moves up his Sophomore 197-pounder to heavyweight to take on the Cornell Senior. It pays off! Mario Gonzalez wins, and the ILLINI take the dual! #6 Illinois 19, #5 Cornell 16 125 No. 6 Jesse Delgado (ILL) dec. No. 6 Frank Perrelli (COR), 8-3 133 No. 5 BJ Futrell (ILL) tech fall Naryman Arujau (COR), 18-3, 6:08 141 Mike Nevinger (COR) maj. dec. Daryl Thomas (ILL), 9-0 149 No. 17 Eric Terrazas (ILL) dec. Chris Villalonga (COR), 3-1 157 No. 1 Kyle Dake (COR) dec. Jackson Morse (ILL), 6-4 165 No. 9 Conrad Polz (ILL) dec. Marshall Peppelman (COR), 8-3 174 No. 12 Jordan Blanton (ILL) dec. William George (COR), 7-6 184 No. 5 Steve Bosak (COR) dec. Tony Dallago (ILL), 4-0 197 No. 1 Cam Simaz (COR) pinned Martin Smith (ILL), 3:31* HWT No. 14 Mario Gonzalez (ILL) dec. Maciej Jochym (COR), 8-2 -------------------------- This is my second-favorite ILLINI dual of all time. Part of the reason for it is that the win catapulted the Orange and Blue into the National Duals Final Four. Also, it was just a freaking great match. The NWCA National Duals brought excitement to the sport. I would love to see them happen again, and I would suggest that February is the best time. The way to bring back the National Duals is to have teams like ILLINOIS, Missouri, Cornell, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, NC State, Penn, Pitt, Northern Iowa and other highly-ranked teams all show up. Then, the champion gets to parade around for the rest of the year as NATIONAL CHAMPIONS. See how long Professor Carl and the Brandos keep their teams from becoming NATIONAL CHAMPIONS.
ILLINIWrestlingBlog Posted January 15 Author Posted January 15 Add your favorite duals here. Heck, you could include this year's ILLINI win over Arizona State. That was a thing of beauty! I will add duals to the thread as well. You could also include most memorable duals. I have a couple of those in my brain that didn't end up with an ILLINI win but were full of excitement in one way or another. To jog your memory, you can go to FightingILLINI.com and find the opponent on the schedule for this year or all the way back to 1998-1999 and look up their history against the Orange and Blue. As an example, this is the history for duals against Missouri. There are both memorable and favorite duals in that history! 1
Antonio Rodriguez Los Gatos, California Class of 2026 Committed to Arizona State Projected Weight: 141
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