FLASHBACK: In 1980, Lehigh upsets No. 1 Wisconsin in wrestling

[TomM]

FLASHBACK: In 1980, Lehigh upsets No. 1 Wisconsin in wrestling
http://mymail.wiwrestling.com/email/scripts/index.pl?EV1=14207443122028561
  1980—Mike Brown's win at 190 clinches a 25-15 wrestling win for Lehigh over No. 1 Wisconsin before 4,000 at Stabler Center.

I do not remember this. Details anyone?
Mitch?

[badgerjohn]

FLASHBACK: In 1980, Lehigh upsets No. 1 Wisconsin in wrestling
http://mymail.wiwrestling.com/email/scripts/index.pl?EV1=14207443122028561
  1980—Mike Brown's win at 190 clinches a 25-15 wrestling win for Lehigh over No. 1 Wisconsin before 4,000 at Stabler Center.

I do not remember this. Details anyone?
Mitch?

Memory is the second failure of old age.  I can't remember what the first is.

[TLV]

I Don't even remember Sconny being #1.

[npope]

Kemp graduated in 1978 (but he was hanging around as a coach in 1980, I believe). So this 1980 team had guys like Andy Rein, Mitch Hull, Scott Schmitz, etc. I took a look at the historical team photos over at the UW wrestling Facebook page and I thought I was able to spot the 1980 team (assuming they are presented in chronological order). If so, I see Dave Branvold in the photo as well.

[billymurphy]

Top Ten Team Scores Number of Individual Champs in parentheses.  1980
1 Iowa 110.75
2 Oklahoma State 87
3 Iowa State 81.75
4 Oklahoma 67.5
5 Arizona State 56.5
6 Lehigh 56.25
7 Wisconsin 55
8 North Carolina State 37.25
9 Oregon State 32.5

Rein was a national champ.

[bigG]

Was it 1986 that Iowa was going for 11 straight and ISAU edged them out? I remember seeing (Jim? Bill?) Kelly spladling Brad Penrith and pinning him.

[hasbeen132]

Scott Schmitz wrestled team mate of mine for state high school title in 1980.

[bigG]

They let college kids wrestle at HS state in 1980?

JK. Scott's good people.

[OneEyedFatMan]

I was on that 1980 Wisconsin team.

However, I did not witness the dual...but I can tell you a few things about the landscape....

First of all......MARK Schmitz @ 142 lbs. I can tell you alot about Schmitty, and the litany of champions he defeated in his day. GREAT champions, I might add. He was number 3 son of 6 of the great Mineral Point Schmitz wrestling family.

Secondly, Lehigh was a very good dual meet team. They had some studs....Colin Kilrain, who was first Marquis of Queensbury's prize fighting heavyweight champ of the world Jake Kilrain's great grandson, or something like that. Colin took a couple of high AA medals @ 177-190.

How good was Lehigh??  They had a 1984 Olympic Freestyle Gold Medalist who couldn't crack the starting squad until his redshirt sophomore year (3rd year) in Bobby Weaver, who was a Dream Teamer in high school.

They had Mike Brown, who was an NCAA runnerup the previous year to an animal from Ok State who then blew his knee out (Eric Wais)

They had Darryl Burley, who was defending NCAA champ as a true freshman ( and four time finalist!) at 134.

They had Rick Santoro, who won an AA medal that year at 118.
Jim Reilly AA'd for Lehigh at 158 also that year.

Denny Reid AA'd for them at 142 also that year.

Lehigh qualified 8 for the NCAA tournament that year and 6 AAd, while the Badgers qualified 9 and AA'd 5.

What I never did witness was the wicked crowd AT Lehigh....guess they put the fans right on top of the mat, practically, and they are vicious from what I understand. ( my two matches vs Lehigh were in the Barn).



Lehigh also walked away with the EIWA championship that year...

http://www.wrestlingstats.com/eiwa/pdf/brackets/EIWA%201980.pdf


FYI, we smoked em in Madison the next year  

[OneEyedFatMan]

Lehigh 25  -  Wisconsin 15
Date: 1980-01-05  -  Location: Home
 Weight    Lehigh Wrestler    Opponent    Result
118    Rich Santoro    Zimmer    WMD 10-1
126    Steve Bastianelli    Brotzman    W 4-2
134    Darryl Burley    Goodspeed    W 4-0
142    Rich Earl    Schmitz    LSD 2-16
150    Denny Reed    Rein    LSD 7-20
158    Jim Reilly    Smith    W 9-6
167    Roy Lobdell    Evans    LSD 7-23
177    Colin Kilrain    Kleinhans    WBF 4:42
190    Mike Brown    Hull    W 3-2
UNL    Drew Keiser    Jerabek    W 8-6


so to explain.....instead of Mike Terry (Sun Prairie), we had Grant Smith as a redshirt freshman in there (DeForest stud) in there against several time AA Jim Reilly, and as you can see, Grant made a game of it. Mike Terry could have won by major, and up a weight no less. Still it wouldn't have been enough.

Kilrain was just way too big for Jim Kleinhans(Chilton), who weighed in at 177 soaking wet.
Mark Zimmer had recently had an emergency appendectomy...but still no excuse eh.

Other than that...word was that the team was just flat.

it should be duly noted that of the ten starters that day, only two were from out of state ( Mark Zimmer and Dave Evans).

[npope]

Thanks for the details, One Eyed.