The Central Michigan wrestling team finished the Northern Quad meet in Rochester, Minn., 1-2 Saturday, losing to North Dakota State 24-17 and Minnesota 21-17 before beating Appalachian State 31-10.

“I felt like we had some chances to be very successful this weekend,” said head coach Tom Borrelli. “We had an opportunity to take a couple weight classes (against Minnesota) and just didn’t make it happen.”

Sophomore Ben Bennett came into the day ranked sixth and finished the day 3-0. In one of the most anticipated matchups of the day, Bennett got the 7-1 decision against Minnesota’s Scott Glasser.

“He wrestled a kid from Minnesota who beat him in the past, and he took it to him pretty good and almost got the major decision against him,” Borrelli said. “I thought Ben was really sharp today and him and Scotti both wrestled well.”

Junior Scotti Sentes also finished 3-0 on the day, recording two major decisions and a fall at the 133-pound weight class, while junior Eric Cubberly finished 2-0 on the day at the 157-pound class.

North Dakota State

CMU rested some of its starters to start the day in a back and fourth matchup against NDSU.

“We were saving some of our starters for the Minnesota match and it backfired a little,” Borrelli said.

Sentes (133) won by a 12-0 major decision to take back the lead after redshirt freshman Joe Roth lost the first 125-pound match 4-0.

Redshirt freshman Scott Mattingly suffered a 9-5 decision, but sophomore Donnie Corby bounced back with the 10-2 decision.

Redshirt freshman Zack Cline had a chance to extend the Chippewa 8-6 lead, but lost by a late fall in the third period.

Bennett won on an 8-1 decision to narrow the deficit to 15-11 before Minnesota pulled away with back-to-back wins in the 184- and 197-pound classes.

“Those guys need to improve and need to be ready to step up when they get the chance to wrestle and a couple of them had tough matches,” Borrelli said. “The dual meet didn’t go our way.”

Minnesota

The most anticipated matchup Saturday was between No. 9 CMU and No. 3 Minnesota. The Gophers came in with seven wrestlers ranked by InterMat, compared to CMU’s four.

Though the teams split the weight classes down the middle at five wins apiece, Minnesota won the match and went on to win all three of its dual meets on the day.

Sentes recorded his second straight major decision, beating Thane Antczak 11-0 to tie the match 4-4.

Minnesota started to pull away when Mike Thorn pinned Mattingly in 4:53 and Corby lost in overtime.

CMU fought back with a 10-2 major decision by senior Mike Miller in his first match back since having shoulder surgery. Cubberly (157) and Bennett (174) each got decisions to give CMU a 14-13 lead.

But the Gophers scored five points on a technical fall against junior Chad Friend, and three points from a 6-1 decision against redshirt freshman Craig Kelliher to pull ahead for the win.

Heavyweight junior Jarod Trice finished the match with a 3-2 decision, but the team came up short, losing 21-17.

Appalachian State

The Chippewas finished the day against Appalachian State, winning seven of its matches.

Sophomore Christian Cullinan posted a 6-3 decision to start the meet. He was the third different 125 pounder to compete in the event for CMU.

“We’re trying to figure out who’s our best representative at that weight class and we haven’t figured that out yet,” Borrelli said. “We haven’t been real consistent at that weight class yet.”

The team travels to Las Vegas, Nev., Friday to compete in the Cliff Keen Invitational.