Saturday was senior Mike Miller’s season debut after being sidelined to heal a surgically repaired shoulder. Miller is a two-time All-American and Mid-American Conference champion and has qualified for nationals three times.

He dislocated his shoulder twice during the 2009-10 season, but decided to put off having surgery until the offseason.

“I wouldn’t say he’s back,” said head coach Tom Borrelli. “It takes a while to get back and get into his rhythm, and his conditioning and timing isn’t where it needs to be, but we’ll get that back.”

In his first match back, the third-ranked Miller won the 165-pound class, getting the 10-2 major decision against Minnesota’s 10-th ranked Cody Yohn. “I was excited about the way Mike wrestled for his first match back,” Borrelli said.

In his second appearance of the day, Miller found himself on the losing side of a 5-3 decision against Appalachian State.

“Mike had a tough match against the guy from Appalachian State,” Borrelli said. “He got caught in a cradle and gave up points, but he wrestled real hard in the third period to come back and I was really pleased with him.”

Miller felt that the injury actually helped him in the long run.

“I had to improve my hip defense and be able to score defensively a lot more because I couldn’t attack with my left shoulder,” he said. “I can score on multiple positions now, so I think my getting hurt actually helped me improve some skills that I would have neglected before.”

The Northern Quad

Borrelli elected to hold a couple starters out of the opening dual meet against North Dakota State to avoid fatigue heading into the second round matchup against No. 3 Minnesota.

NDSU took advantage, upsetting No. 9 CMU 24-17.

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

Sophomore Scotti 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.

The Chippewas had a chance to extend its 8-6 lead, but redshirt freshman Zack Cline lost by a late fall in the third period.

Sophomore Ben 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

CMU and Minnesota took five victories apiece, but Minnesota came out on top with a 21-17 victory.

Sentes recorded his second consecutive major decision, beating Thane Antczak 11-0 to tie the match at four.

Minnesota started to pull away with Mike Thorn’s pin against Mattingly in 4:53 and Corby lost in overtime.

CMU fought back with a 10-2 major decision Miller, and junior Eric Cubberly (157) and sophomore Ben Bennett (174) each beat their opponents to give CMU a 14-13 lead.

“I think I did real good for my first match,” Miller said. “I had my game plan down and I executed it.”

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 won seven matches in the final meet of the Northern Quad, finishing on top against Appalachian State 31-10.

Sentes and Bennett each won by falls against ASU, finishing a combined 6-0 on the day. Sentes had two major decisions while Bennett won an 8-1 major decision and 7-1 decision, the latter coming against No. 10 Scott Glasser (Minnesota).

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

“We have a lot of work to do,” Miller said. “We’re a young team this year, and we made little mistakes that our older guys wouldn’t have made, so that’s cost us a little bit.