Continued from page 12 Olympic and World champ Jordan Burroughs beat World silver medalist Ezzatollah Akbari of Iran 7-1. John Sachs photo.
Ratushny at 57 kg/125.5 lbs. Kennedy scored on a takedown in each period to down Olympic silver medalist Vasyl Fedoryshyn 5-1 at 61 kg/134 lbs. Metcalf followed with a dominating 12-2 technical fall over Ivan Petriv at 65 kg/143 lbs. Metcalf went 5-0 over the weekend. U.S. wrestler Nick Marable continued the momentum in earn- ing a hard-fought 3-2 win over Ukraine’s Andriy Kvyatkovskyy at 70 kg/154 lbs.
American heavyweight Tervel Dlagnev won by forfeit. The U.S. placed third in the World Cup for the third straight
year. The Americans went 4-1 in the two-day event, falling only to Iran.
The U.S. started the day with a dominating 8-0 win over
Turkey. The Americans did not allow a point in the first four matches en route to the win.
Burroughs recorded his third pin of the weekend in the dual
with Turkey. USA vs. Iran
It was the hard-fought, edge-of-your seat battle everyone expected.
In the end, the powerful Iranian team outlasted a determined United States team 5-3 at the World Cup on March 15 before 3,500 boisterous fans at the Forum.
Iran won the final two matches to break a 3-3 tie with the U.S. The Iranians were backed by a vocal crowd of wrestling-mad Iranian fans here in California. Two-time World champion Reza Yazdani downed two-time
World Team member J.D. Bergman 8-0 at 97 kg/213 lbs. to give Iran a 4-3 lead in the team score.
Iran then clinched the dual victory when Olympic bronze medalist Komeil Ghasemi edged World bronze medalist Tervel Dlagnev 1-0 at 125 kg/275 lbs.
Dlagnev was put on the shot clock for passivity in the first period and was unable to score in the 30-second time frame, giving Ghasemi what turned out to be the only point of the match. Dlagnev took numerous shots in the final period, but was unable to score. “We are obviously disappointed,” U.S. coach Zeke Jones said. “We didn’t do the little things we needed to do to win. It’s always a game of inches in a dual with two good teams like this. We just didn’t do enough. Iran is ahead of us, but we are mak- ing progress. We do the little things right we turn that dual meet into a victory.”
American Clayton Foster shot in for a takedown in the final 10 seconds to knock off Iran’s Ehsan Lashgari 7-5 at 86 kg/189 lbs. Lashgari won a bronze medal in the 2012 Olympics and 2013 World Championships.
Olympic gold medalist and two-time World champion Jordan Burroughs kept his composure in winning a physical match with Iran’s Ezzatollah Akbari Zarinkolaei by a 7-1 score at 74 kg/163 lbs. Burroughs beat the Iranian 4-0 in the 2013 World finals. “That guy is obviously tough,” Burroughs said. “I got my job done. I came out here to wrestle a tough match. You could see at the end of the match he expected to win. He was distraught and heartbroken. But I expected to win, too.” American Brent Metcalf broke Iran’s Meisam Nasiri in earning
an 11-8 win at 65 kg/143 lbs. Metcalf fell behind 5-0 before scor- ing two late takedowns to close out a furious second-period rally.
“I’m excited to win,” Metcalf said. “I’m not happy about giving up the big points early. I had to work hard to come back and I got to where I needed to be to win.” Iran earned a key victory when World bronze medalist Masoud Esmailpoor Jouybari rallied for a 10-8 win over Reece Humphrey of the U.S. Humphrey led 8-1 before the Iranian ral- lied to win at 61 kg/134 lbs.
13 USA Wrestler
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