In his first match back in the lineup after multiple injuries, Miller fought back from a 6-3 deficit to tie the 165-pound match at seven points apiece before scoring on a match-winning takedown in overtime.

“I needed to wrestle; I’ve been riddled with injuries since last year,” Miller said. “(There's) no better way than to come out in front of 4,000 fans back home.”

The senior’s 9-7 victory was a silver lining for Central Michigan, as the team fell to interstate rival No. 12 Michigan 21-12 in its home opener in front of 3,047.

“None of our guys were real fundamentally sound,” said head coach Tom Borrelli. “We had to win at 125, we had to win at 149 and we had to win at 184, we felt like, and we lost all three of those matches and that’s the dual meet.”

CMU (3-7, 1-0 MAC) got off to a rough start, with sophomore Christian Cullinan dropping the 125-pound match by a 9-5 decision.

The Chippewas would answer in the second match. Junior Scotti Sentes scored on a takedown in the first period, and increased his lead in the second. He chose to start the period down, and scored on a reversal while adding riding time in route to a 5-1 decision.

CMU tied the score, but that was as close as they would come to a lead on the day.

Redshirt freshman Scott Mattingly came into the match with a 9-1 loss against No. 1 Kellen Russell already under his belt this season, and wrestled a close match before losing 3-0.

“I wrestled him in the first weekend of the season at an open tournament so I knew what to expect,” Mattingly said. “I just wanted to improve on some things I’ve been working on, which I felt that I did.”

Russell scored on a second period reversal, and tacked on a riding time point to chants of ‘overrated’ from the pro-CMU crowd.

“I thought (Scott) wrestled a very smart match, a very strategic match, and that’s the kind of match we wanted him to wrestle,” Borrelli said. “But finish that last takedown. He’s capable of finishing that. He took a nice shot in the third period, but he should have finished that.”

UM (4-2) started to pull away with a technical fall at the 149-pound class and a major decision at the 157-pound class.

Miller’s decision cut the Wolverines lead to 15-6 and sophomore Ben Bennett added a 6-1 decision to pull CMU within six points, but back-to-back losses leading up to the heavyweight match sealed the win for U-M.

No. 2 Jarod Trice scored on two takedowns and a riding time point to win a 5-3 decision over No. 10 Ben Apland.

With the win, the Wolverines snapped a three-match losing streak against CMU. In their last meeting in 2008, the Chippewas rolled past Michigan 19-12.

CMU drops to 5-19 all-time against UM.

“I think we still have a lot to work on,” Miller said. “We’ve just got to keep on working and this is the time to do it. We’ve got out MAC Schedule coming up and this is where we’ll be home a lot more so we can really work on things a lot more that we need to work on.”

The team now has to prepare for its second Big Ten opponent in under a week when they travel to Michigan State at 2 p.m. Friday.