The Minnesota wrestling program has won four straight Big Ten duals including over No. 21 Michigan and No. 12 Rutgers. On Friday, the Gophers will take on the Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus at 6:00 p.m.

It will be the first of two duals for the program this weekend as they're also set to take on the Purdue Boilermakers on Sunday afternoon at Maturi Pavillion, we'll have a preview for Sunday's dual on Saturday.

OPPONENT: #4 Ohio State Buckeyes (12-1, 4-1 B1G)

WHEN: 6:00 PM CT (Friday, February 7, 2025)

WHERE: Covelli Center (Columbus, Ohio)

TV: BTN+

FOLLOW: @MinnesotaRivals | @GopherWrestling | @MinnesotaOnBTN

The No.7 Minnesota Golden Gophers have won four-straight duals since falling to No. 6 Nebraska on January 11 and will look to continue their hot streak on Friday when they take on the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes, the program's toughest opponent this season.

The Gophers enter Friday with wrestlers ranked in all 10 weight classes including Gable Steveson continuing to hold the No. 1 spot at 285 pounds. The Buckeyes have representatives in all 10 weight classes as well.

While Minnesota historically has been strong against the Buckeyes with a 35-19-2 record, the Buckeyes have been dominant over the last decade winning five of six matchups including each of the last five.

Notably, Ohio State's official preview has true freshman Ben Davino going at 133-pounds for the Bucketye against Tyler Wells instead of Nic Bouzakis.

125 - No. 9 Cooper Flynn (R-Jr.)/Brandon Morvari (R-Fr.) vs. No. 18 Brendan McCrone (R-So.)

133 - No. 18 Tyler Wells (So.) vs. Ben Davino (Fr.)

141 - No. 8 Vance VomBaur (R-Jr.) vs. No. 1 Jesse Mendez (Jr.)

149 - Drew Roberts (R-Jr.)/Theo Cha (R-Sr.) vs. No. 8 Dylan D'Emilio (Gr.)

157 - No. 8 Tommy Askey (5th) vs. No. 16 Sammy Sasso (Gr.) or Brandon Cannon (R-Fr.)

165 - No. 11 Andrew Sparks (5th) or Blaine Brenner (R-Jr.) vs. No. 9 Paddy Gallagher (R-Jr.) or Brock Herman (R-Fr.)

174 - No. 22 Clayton Whiting (R-So.) vs. No. 5 Carson Kharchla (Gr.)1

184 - No. 4 Max McEnelly (R-Fr.)/Gabe Nagel (R-Jr.) vs. No. 19 Ryder Rogotzke (So.)

197 - No. 9 Isaiah Salazar (5th) vs. No. 18 Seth Shumate (R-So.)

HWT - No. 1 Gable Steveson (Gr.)/Bennett Tabor (R-Jr.) vs. No. 9 Nick Feldman (R-So.)

The top matchup on Friday night is in the 141-weight class between Vance VomBaur and Jesse Mendez. Mendez enters the match as the No. 1 wrestler at 141 in the country with a perfect 21-0 record. Vombauer has been great this season himself with an 18-2 record. VomBaur has taken a huge step up since his sophomore season last year when he was 19-11 but this will be by far and away his biggest test this season. It's going to be very hard for VomBaur to pull off this upset but if he can continue to show he's taking those next steps as a wrestler and go toe-to-toe with Mendez would be quite impressive.

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