The Austin wrestling team struggled with finding aggression in a 64-3 loss to Owatonna in Ove Berven Gym Tuesday.

The Packers (1-1 overall, 1-1 Big Nine) lost three matches by three points or less on the night.

“We didn’t compete very well. We wrestled more to stay in the match and keep in the match,” Austin head coach Bill Kinney said. “You don’t beat a team like this unless you force the action and we didn’t do that in the places where we needed to.”

The toughest loss came at 145 pounds, where Howie Underwood took a 4-2 lead into the third period. Owatonna’s Zach Schreiber escaped to start the third period and he took Underwood down with three seconds left to win 5-4.

Ethan Eggum also had a chance to win at 160. After a near fall, he pulled off a nice reversal to pull within 3-2 at the end of the second period. Eggum started on top in the third period and couldn’t score any points off of Tyler Thomas.

The Packer’s lone win came from Michael Hirsch at 189 pounds over Dalton Henderson, where he used five takedowns to get a 10-5 victory. The junior drew a large cheer from the crowd as he notched the only win of the night.

“That’s the best part of wrestling. I love that the most,” Hirsch said of the crowd’s reaction. “(The loss) was kind of depressing, but it was at least nice to put up some points.”

Kinney said Hirsch took the right attitude into his match.

“Once (Michael) got ahead he wasn’t satisfied,” Kinney said. “He was still hitting shots when he was ahead 10-5. You have to wrestle the full six minutes.”

Brandon Holtorf jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period of his match at 135. But he allowed two near falls in the second period and lost 9-6.

RESULTS

103: Nick Sheffert (O) pinned Jacob Finnegan (A) (3:26); 112: Scott Summer (O) pinned Colin Sheehan (A) (3:09); 119: Dillin Schultz (O) pinned Erik Power (2:44); 125: Bowen Schultz (O) pinned Thao Doan (A) (:46); 130: Tom Lundberg (O) pinned Dylan Dikmann (A) (5:55); 135: Jake Fox (O) 9-6 dec. over Brandon Holtorf (A); 140: Matt Dinise (O) 10-2 dec. over Zach Sauer (A); 145: Zach Schreiber (O) 5-4 dec. over Howie Underwood (A); 152: Taylor Hedberg (O) pinned Bryce Zahradnik (A) (4:50); 160: Tyler Thomas (O) 3-2 dec. over Ethan Eggum (A); 171: Jordan Gnerer (O) pinned Brett Newell (A) (5:28); 189: Michael Hirsch (A) 10-5 dec. over Dalton Henderson (O); 215: Cody Johnson (O) pinned Brett Kraemer (A) (3:49); Hwt: Josh Woodrich (O) 5-1 dec. over Thomas Herrera (A)