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25 I owa's midterm test came and went, and whether it ended in a win, loss, or did-not- finish, the coaches and wrestlers inside the Dan Gable Wrestling Complex know there is a lot of work to do. Twenty-one Hawkeye wrestlers competed at the 2018 Midlands Championships on Dec. 29-30 at Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Iowa's top scorers from each weight class totaled 184 team points. It was enough to win the 28th team title in the 56- year history of the event, and it was 64.5 points clear of second place Northern Iowa. But it was only a December sample in a body of work that needs to get stronger as the calendar flips from January, to February, to March. "We have a lot of work to do," said Iowa head coach Tom Brands. "We had two champions and six in the finals. Two-for-six, we have to do better than that." Iowa champions included 133-pound sophomore Austin DeSanto and 165-pound sophomore Alex Marinelli. DeSanto finished his first Midlands as the tournament's individual high-point scorer. He reached the finals with four wins by major decision, technical fall, pin, and stalling disqualification. Once he reached the finals, he put up a 15-5 major decision against Campbell's Noah Gonser. ose wins contributed 28.5 points to Iowa's team total. Brands credits the results to DeSanto's approach to preparation since Iowa opened the season two months ago. "[DeSanto] is a sponge, No. 1. No. 2, he works really hard. Wrestling means a lot to him," Brands said. "He wants to please his fans. He wants to please his teammates and he wants to please his coaches. I attribute a lot of that to the motivating factors in his life." Marinelli defended his title from 2017. He scored 24 points with five wins, including one pin, one major decision, and three straight wins over ranked wrestlers. He defeated No. 19 Jonathan Viruet, 8-6, in the quarterfinals, and advanced to the finals with a 4-1 decision against No. 5 Josh Shields in the semis. He met No. 2 Evan Wick in the finals, and avenged a loss that had been stewing since Wick defeated Marinelli 16-3 at the 2018 national tournament. "I waited a long time for that match. It killed me to lose by so many points at the national tournament to him. at match was marked on my calendar for a long time," Marinelli said. Marinelli could see Wick up to three more times this season. No. 4 Iowa (6-0, 1-0) visits Wisconsin Feb. 17 before two postseason tournaments in March, the Big Ten (March 9-10) and NCAA Championships (March 21-23). e same could be said for two of Iowa's Midlands runners-up. Spencer Lee and Kaleb Young both lost to Northwestern Wildcats. Lee and Sebastian Rivera are the top two ranked wrestlers in the country at 125. Young and Ryan Deakin are ranked No. 2 and No. 3 at 157, respectively. e first rematch could be Jan. 27 when Iowa travels to Northwestern. It is the fourth of four Big Ten duals on Iowa's January schedule. JANUARY SCHEDULE Jan. 13 at No. 8 Minnesota Jan. 18 No. 24 Rutgers Jan. 25 at No. 18 Illinois Jan. 27 Northwestern