Redshirt freshman wrestler Kollin Moore gets his hand raised after defeating Penn State’s Matt McCutcheon at 197 pounds on Feb. 3, 2017 at the Schottenstein Center. Credit: Nicholas McWilliams | Sports Editor

After losing two straight dual meets against No. 3 Iowa and No. 2 Penn State, the No. 4 Ohio State wrestling team got back on track with a 23-18 victory over No. 13 Rutgers.

The dual began with a matchup at 141 pounds, and with a 10-1 major decision loss by No. 15 Luke Pletcher to No. 6 Anthony Ashnault of Rutgers. Pletcher, a redshirt freshman, struggled to find room to grab a leg on nearly every takedown attempt, and was dominated late by Ashnault.

The 149-pound bout between No. 5 Micah Jordan and No. 14 Ken Theobold of Rutgers got started with an early roll-through by Jordan for a takedown. He captured a 12-4 major decision, good for his first win in the last three matches, after facing the No. 3 and No. 1 wrestlers at 149 in the last two meets.

Redshirt freshman Josh Powell was dominated by Rutgers’ John Van Brill at 157 pounds to the tune of a 17-0 technical fall, which put the Scarlet Knights up 9-4. Powell spent most of the match pinned to his gut by Van Brill, who would occasionally turn to put Powell’s shoulders in a near fall position for easy points.

Redshirt sophomore Cody Burcher captured a victory at 165 pounds against Anthony Pafumi, with both wrestlers collapsing to the mat after the hard fought 7-5 bout.

OSU redshirt senior Justin Kresevic suffered a 7-1 decision loss while replacing the injured Bo Jordan.

Bo Jordan is out after aggravating a foot injury from earlier in the season during the team’s tilt against Iowa.

“Hopefully he’ll be ready Friday night against Nebraska, he’s day-by-day,” coach Tom Ryan said. “As soon as he’s ready, he’ll be in there.”

At 184 pounds, No. 10 Myles Martin picked up a victory over No. 13 Nicholas Gravina of Rutgers. Similar to Micah Jordan, Martin has faced two top-five opponents in the last two duals, losing each of those two bouts.

Martin picked up a riding-time bonus point in his matchup with Gravina, coming within one point of a major decision victory.

“Riding sometimes can be viewed as a lot of energy for not a lot of points, and tonight (Martin) put him down three or four times, and then one time he caught him between his legs and ended up picking up back points for it, and that’s just tough wrestling,” Ryan said. “You’ve got to wrestle tough and that’s a good example of it.”

No. 4 197-pounder Kollin Moore continued to cement himself as a threat to win a national championship in his weight class with a major decision victory over Rutgers’ Matthew Correnti. Toward the end of the third period, the freshman Moore and Correnti began to be more aggressive with each other, and members of either coaching staff yelled for a hands-to-the-face call.

“I probably didn’t need to do it, but when you do something like that back you just let the guy know that you’re there too and you’re not going to back down,” Moore said. “Just letting him know that I’m not going to punked around in a match.”

Junior and Olympic gold medalist Kyle Snyder worked methodically in heavyweight, tallying 11 takedowns in a 25-9 technical fall victory over Razohn Gross (Rutgers). Snyder continues to solidify his No. 1 ranking, and remained undefeated.

At 125 pounds, the Buckeyes forfeited, as No. 18 Jose Rodriguez was out with an injury. The forfeit put the bout at 19-18 favoring OSU heading into the final matchup.

At 133 pounds, No. 1 Nathan Tomasello got a quick takedown and two-point near fall in the first period before being taken down by Rutgers’ Scott DelVecchio. That takedown was DelVecchio’s only for the rest of the bout, as a visibly frustrated Tomasello turned up the heat.

He added four more near fall points and a riding time bonus to capture a 15-5 major decision victory, and put OSU ahead 23-18 for the finish.

The Buckeyes are set to travel to Nebraska on Friday for their next dual meet. Currently, the Cornhuskers are ranked No. 5, right behind OSU.