The No. 13 North Carolina wrestling team (12-7, 4-1 ACC) ended its regular season with a win over Duke (2-9, 0-5 ACC) at Cameron Indoor Stadium, continuing a program winning streak in Durham dating back to 1973. The Tar Heels rode big wins by their seniors to a 23-16 victory and a share of the 2019 ACC title.
What happened
Duke’s No. 16 ranked sophomore Matt Finesilver gave the Blue Devils a welcome start as he got the better of redshirt sophomore Devin Kane, 5-0, in a slow moving first match. At the 184-pound weight class, Duke’s Kaden Russell came out strong, getting his hands around redshirt senior No. 14 Chip Ness and spinning him. But Ness got out of trouble and put Russell on his stomach, eventually building up a 15-7 win for the major decision to put UNC ahead 4-3.
Another strategic match between Blue Devil senior Alec Schenk and Tar Heel first-year Brandon Whitman wound up 3-2 in Duke’s advantage.
The last two bouts before the intermission were dominated by UNC. At the 285-pound weight class, redshirt senior Cory Daniel was content to get take downs and allow occasional escapes, earning a 22-7 tech fall and five team points for UNC in his final dual match of his college career.
Rolling over to the 125-pound weight class, first-year Joe Heilmann seemed to have been taking notes on Daniel’s strategy. In much the same fashion as Daniel, Heilmann racked up a 22-6 tech fall win midway through the third period, seemingly able to get two takedown points on command. The 10 team points from the two wrestlers gave UNC a 14-6 lead.
No. 20 redshirt senior Gary Wayne Harding was even more efficient with first-year Arien Leigh, pinning him midway through the second period to give UNC a commanding 20-6 lead. A buzzer-beater takedown at 141 pounds gave Duke’s Josh Finesilver a 12-10 comeback win over A.C. Headlee, setting up an important matchup between Duke’s No. 7 Mitch Finesilver and UNC’s No. 4 Austin O’Connor.
The top-10 duo had wrestled twice this season already — splitting the matches — with neither wrestler recording more than three points in either bout. Heading into the third period on Friday, O’Connor was down 3-1 before getting a hard fought escape to come back within one point with 1:15 remaining. The pair traded takedowns, but a false start with six seconds left to go cost O’Connor the upright position in the 6-4 loss to fall to 28-4 on the season.
The win was not enough to overcome UNC's mid-match dominance. Josh McClure scored a 10-5 win over Benjamin Anderson to give UNC a 23-12 lead and clinch the ACC title. Despite suffering a loss in the final bout, UNC left Cameron Indoor with a 23-16 win.
