Wisconsin’s Dallas Herbst hopes offseason training with pinning machine Gene Mills helps him earn the elusive All-American honors he has just missed the past two years. The Badgers 197-pounder is wrestling at a high level and hopes to not only become an All-American, but a national champion
By Andrew Berglund – TWM Freelance Writer
In back to back years, Wisconsin junior Dallas Herbst has come agonizingly close to becoming an NCAA All-American.
Appearing at his first NCAA championships as a freshman in 2006, Herbst went 3-2 at 197 pounds, losing in the second round in a back-and-forth battle with No. 3 seed B.J. Padden of Nebraska. The match went into overtime before he fell 8-6. His bid for becoming a freshman All-American ended when No. 5 seed Joe Flaggert of Oklahoma defeated Herbst 5-1, ending his run.
But it was a clear sign that Herbst was going to be a force to be reckoned with in the 197 lb. weight class for years to come.
“Dallas really had a great showing at his first NCAA championships,” Wisconsin assistant coach Cory Wallamn said in Oklahoma City. “By going 3-2 he knows that he can compete at this level and next year he will look to finish higher.”
At the NCAA’s in Detroit last year, Herbst, seeded 12th, again drew another championship contender in the second round in Cornell’s No. 5 seed Jerry Rinaldi, who sent the sophomore into the consolation bracket.
He dominated his way back into contention again winning two in a row by pin and major decision until Big Ten foe No. 3 Mike Tamillow put up another road block on Herbst’s way to being on the medal stand. Tamillow prevailed 10-3.
“The last couple of years, it sucks getting that close, all that hard work and you get that close and you fail,” Herbst said. “So it’s definitely something I want to improve on this year. I think I have to wrestle better those first couple of matches and not lose that early match like I’ve done the last couple of years.”
Herbst has been a one man wrecking crew for Wisconsin this year, determined to put the past NCAA tournaments behind him. He’s 21-1 on the season and currently ranked No. 5 in the latest Wrestling Mall polls.
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He was just awarded his second Big Ten Conference Wrestler of the Week honor (sharing the award with Iowa’s Brent Metcalf) after pinning Iowa State’s David Bertolino and exacting a bit of revenge on Oklahoma’s Flaggert on a tie breaker and handing the Sooner his first loss on the season in a crucial match that helped Wisconsin upend Oklahoma 18-15.
“I think he’s better in all positions right now,” said head coach Barry Davis, who secured his 150 career coaching victory in the win over Oklahoma. “He took the time this past summer to go out and spend a couple of weeks with Gene Mills out there at his camp and that was a big plus for him. I think Gene helped him tremendously on the mat and mentally as well. He just got so much better on his feet as well. He’s really focused right now and doing the little things right.”
According to Herbst, the coaching milestone was extremely well deserved for Davis, now in his 14th season with the Badgers.
“He’s one of those go-getters. He always has got to be doing something,” Herbst said. “It’s a good thing to see as a wrestler; he’s always working and trying to get better any way he can, so he’s a good role model for us. We work hard for everything we do because you see how much work he puts in.”
Herbst worked hard and paid his own way out to see Mills, a two-time NCAA champion, pinning specialist and member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, who runs the intensive and highly respected Pin2Win wrestling camps in Pennsylvania each summer.
Herbst already had an impressive pinning resume, pinning 12 opponents as a freshman and a record-setting 18 last year that tied him with former Badger great Lee Kemp. His pin of Bertolino of Iowa State recently was the 41st time he’s flattened an opponent in his career, which puts him just six shy of tying Kemp’s school record of 47 falls.
“I do a lot of things he did,” Herbst said about learning from Mills. “It was about going out there and getting some tips on how he was so successful with the half nelson and just learning some new things that I can do in different situations to make my half better. I would say learning new ways of turning guys and getting turns when I couldn’t get them last year, was the biggest thing I took out of that.”
Going the extra mile was something that really stood out to Davis about Herbst’s mentality and determination going into his junior campaign.
“When he took the initiative to go out there and see Gene Mills, that said right there that he was really focused on winning,” said Davis. “I think the key to his success is that he got beat in the round of 12 two years in a row and he knew that he needed to make changes. And we sat him down and said Dallas, ‘this is what you need to do’. Spend some time with him (Mills). And we got a hold of Gene, and he paid his own way out there and he made that sacrifice.”
It paid huge dividends early as Herbst ripped his way through the Cliff Keen Invitational back in December, pinning four opponents and majoring the other in a dominating championship at 197. He sent an early message in the finals by pinning No. 1 seed Max Askren of Missouri in the final seconds of the match.
“I think it was a good confidence booster,” Davis said Herbst’s performance in Las Vegas. “He beat some good guys along the way. When you win a tournament like that, it will give you a lot of confidence and he’s taken off from there.”
“He comes into practiced focused every day and knows what he needs to work on and improve on and he’s paying a lot more attention to detail on what he really needs to work on to get him where he wants to be,” Davis said.
“Little steps like that, definitely helped me think of it not just as a fluke,” Herbst said of his title.
His ability to pin at will is definitely no fluke, as he demonstrated at Winneconne High School, going undefeated (85-0) his final two years and being named Wrestler of the year in Wisconsin in 2004.
“I go into every match looking at the same thing; I like to get that pin,” said Herbst, who committed to Davis and Wisconsin early. That’s always been my mentality—even since high school. I really didn’t expect to have that same mentality in college, but I got a lot of pins my redshirt and I kept that same mentality.”
He’s asked often about his 6’5 frame and how that plays into his advantage, as most of his opponents get lost in his shadow.
“It’s no different than being faster or being stronger, you have to use what you are given,” he said. “It’s definitely an asset.”
Herbst is currently ranked behind two Big Ten rivals that he’ll likely see a lot of down the stretch run in Penn State’s Phil Davis and Northwestern’s Tamillow. Defending NCAA champion Josh Glenn holds the No. 1 ranking and Central Michigan veteran Wynn Michalak rounds out the top four.
“It’s real tough,” Davis said of the competitive 197 pound class. “I think the guy that is going to win that is the guy that is peaking at the right time and we just have to make sure we’re in our positions. If we can do that, we have just as good a shot as anybody else does.” |
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Herbst split with Davis last season, losing 11-6 earlier in the season and then evening the score by defeating Davis for third place at last year’s Big Ten Championships. With time winding down, Herbst maneuvered around Davis for a takedown with six seconds remaining and held on for a 6-4 victory. “I’ve wrestled a few of them in years past,” Herbst said of his top-ranked adversaries.
“I’ve never wrestled Glenn, so I don’t know much about that. With the other ones, I think I match up pretty well overall and it’s no different this year with the weight being stacked like the last two years.”
Herbst, along with stand outs and currently ranked Craig Henning, Colin Cudd, Zach Tanelli, Kyle Ruschell, and Kyle Massey lead Wisconsin. The Badgers will be hoping to improve on an outstanding season from a year ago, one in which they finished 2nd at the Big Ten’s, qualified nine for the NCAA’s and finished 13th overall.
But it was a bittersweet ending for Davis.
“We didn’t do as well as we wanted to do at the NCAA’s,” Davis said. “We were a few matches away from what we really wanted to do, but that momentum carried over to this year. The guys did a good job this summer, during camps and workouts, guys paying attention to detail and changing their styles, (asking) what do I have to do to be successful?”
Wisconsin (10-2-1) is ranked No. 12 in the Wrestling Mall rankings and now into the thick of the Big Ten schedule. With timely wrestling, they could easily climb their way into another top finish at the Big Ten tournament like last season.
“Early in the season, in September and October, we said, ‘guys we’re a good team,’” Davis recalled. “Everybody is pretty much back from last year - with 11 qualifiers back. This is our year. It starts now and then we have to work towards March and they are doing the little things right. We thought we were going to break through last year and we were close and we didn’t quite get there.”
“It’s like Dallas,” Davis said. “You come that close and you’re like ‘whoa, I don’t want to come close, I want to make it happen.’”
The Wisconsin junior certainly has learned to focus on all the right things associated with getting better and has learned sometimes you do indeed have to fail to succeed.
Andrew Berglund can be reached at berglundandrew@yahoo.com |
