MINOT, N.D. – The Beaver wrestling team looked much improved since the last time they faced Minnesota State.

In 2012-13 MISU fell to the Mavericks 54-0 and were pinned six times in the loss. Friday night at the Minot State Dome, the improvement was apparent, but the result was still a loss as Minnesota State took down Minot State 31-9 in the Northern Sun opener.

"I think we wrestled a lot better and we were competitive," said Minot State head coach Robin Ersland. "There were some close matches and we didn't really get blown out in anything."

After each team forfeited a weight class to start the match (MISU forfeited 125 pounds, MSU forfeited 133 pounds), Zachary Cummings (Fr., 141, Birmingham, Ala.) took on nationally ranked No. 4 Alphonso Vruno. Vruno won the match 7-1 but Cummings did a nice job from preventing a major decision loss.

In the 149 pound match, the Beavers had a solid chance to even things up as Jon Wilson (So., 149, held a 4-2 advantage heading in to the third period. A late takedown and an riding time point however took the wind out of the Beavers' sails as they lost six consecutive matches.

"The match that probably hurt us the most, and I hate to say that, was the match at 149," said Ersland. "If we win that match, that's an upset and that gets us on a roll. There were just some mental errors in a few matches that cost us big in the team score but that's part of the building process and we will learn from this and be better when we wrestling them in February or March."

The match wrestled of the night was at 197 pounds where Mitchell Eull (Fr., 197, Buffalo, Minn.) faced off against a familiar opponent, his high school teammate and fellow freshman Michael Kessler. It was clear that Eull and Kessler knew each other's game as the match headed to overtime with Eull pulling out the 3-2 win.

Bobby Bartz (Sr., HWT, Harvey, N.D.) did not wrestled in the final match as he forfeited as he is still battling a knee injury.

The Beavers will not be action until the new-year as they travel to Ersland's former school, University of Central Missouri to wrestled four duals on Jan. 5.

No. 18 Minnesota State 31, Minot State 9
125 - Trevor Schultz, Minnesota State, won by forfeit (0-6)
133 - Joshua Douglas, Minot State, won by forfeit (6-6)
141 - Alphonso Vruno, Minnesota State, defeated Zachary Cummings, 7-1 (6-9)
149 - Jeremy Kelly, Minnesota State, defeated Jon Wilson, 5-4 (6-12)
157 - Adam Cooling, Minnesota State, defeated Ricards Avakovs, 7-6 (6-15)
165 - Cody Quinn, Minnesota State, defeated Marcus Polak, 6-3 (6-18)
174 - Darick Vancura, Minnesota State, won by major decision over Tiger Paasch, 14-2 (6-22)
184 - Scott VanDeLoo, Minnesota State, defeated Matt Fetterley, 2-0 (6-25)
197 - Mitchell Eull, Minot State, defeated Michael Kessler, 3-2 (OT) (9-25)
HWT - Corby Running, Minnesota State, won by forfeit (9-31)