Finneseth lone Bison winner

The Forum, Fargo, North Dakota

03/04/1996

Finneseth lone Bison winner, Neb. - Omaha takes team wrestling title, NDSU fourth
By Jeff Kolpack

On a Sunday when Nebraska-Omaha and South Dakota State battled for the pie, Robert Finneseth gave North Dakota State a bite. The Bison senior claimed a North Central Conference wrestling championship.

Finneseth defeated Omaha's Corry Royal 5-2 in the 177-pound title match. It accomplished two things: it put a few smiles back on the faces of the Bison and it put a nice touch on Finneseth's career.

"Being it was here and all the home-town crowd, the best thing was hearing them cheer," Finneseth said.

The senior from Velva, N.D., put Royal on his back in the third period for the clincher. For one of the few times all day, the Bison Sports Arena came alive.

"I wasn't just mad, I was upset," Finneseth said of the Bison day. "The guys worked hard, but just got out-wrestled." Omaha survived a late rally to claim the team title by 1 1/2 points. It went down to two heavyweight matches. The Jackrabbits needed Omaha's Wade Kroeze to lose to Mankato's Tony Kenning in the title duel, which he did 7-5. And the Jacks needed Ryan Resel to pin Northern Colorado's Chris Villalobos for third place. Resel didn't get the two team points for a pin, but he did win by a 3-2 decision.

The difference for the Mavericks came in the first round. Before suffering another knee injury, defending national champion Ralphael Kizzee picked up three points with a pin.

"It was his three points," Omaha coach Mike Denny. "He tore it out again completely. There's nothing in it." There wasn't much in the Bison's machine on Sunday. They advanced only two to the finals: 126-pounder Jeff Kapusta and Finneseth.

Kapusta and Omaha's Braumon Creighton spent most of their match looking at each other. It ended in overtime with Kapusta looking at the mat, and Creighton behind him for a two-point takedown. The sudden-death score gave Creighton a 5-3 win.

"I was waiting for a good shot," Kapusta said. "Then I took a bad one and he capitalized. It's a tough way to lose." Kapusta did not register a takedown. He got two points on two escapes and was awarded one when Creighton was penalized for stalling.

"He was dancing around too much and I couldn't get in," Kapusta said. "He's solid. He stays in good position. It was very frustrating." That summed up NDSU's day. Second-seeded George Thompson was pinned in his first-round match at 134 by North Dakota's Chris Zink. Thompson eventually took fifth.

The hardest fall, however, was taken by senior Mike McCormick. The All-American, who dropped from 177 to 167, lost his first two matches. SDSU's Pat Timm beat him 19-7 and St. Cloud State's Adam Tate ended his season with an 11-9 decision.

"We had a really tough day," Kapusta said. "If you get on a roll and your teammates see that, then you want to do the same." It took until Finneseth's title before that changed. Finneseth moved down from 190 to 177 and was a terror all day, winning 16-3 and by pin in his first two matches.

"Not eating for a week made me mad enough to do something I guess," he said.