No matter what situation he found himself in this weekend at the Northern Iowa Open, Illinois wrestler B.J. Futrell wasn’t going to be feeling any pressure to perform well.

“No, there isn’t any pressure. I haven’t won anything yet,” he said. “The way I see pressure is from people that don’t know where their next meal is coming from or guys that are fighting in Iraq. I’m doing what I love at a school that I love and getting an education for free. Wrestling is what I enjoy to do.”

Futrell and Pat Walker both captured titles at the Northern Iowa Open, while 10 other Illinois wrestlers finished in the top five.

Futrell, a 141-pound senior, continued his early season dominance by winning all five of his matches over the weekend. In his first match, Futrell pinned Scott Moody of Iowa State in 3 minutes, 51 seconds before pinning Rylan Lubeck of Wisconsin in 5:30 in his second. He then defeated Purdue’s Nick Lawrence by a 12-5 decision and Northern Iowa’s Gunnar Wolfensperger 10-4 to reach the title match. Futrell would go on to beat Joey Lazor of Northern Iowa 8-2 to capture the 141 title.

“Just looking at the weekend in general, it was nice to win the title,” Futrell said. “But looking at my performance, I did not feel like I wrestled my best. I could have wrestled more of my style and could have dictated the matches a lot better.”

Ranked third in the country at 141 pounds, Futrell has been the man to beat in many of the Illini’s early season open tournaments. After earning his second-career All-America honor last season by placing sixth at the NCAA Champinships, Futrell has stayed level-headed so far this season.

Walker also captured a title as he won two of his matches by falls and two by decisions before defeating Northern Iowa’s Cody Krumwiede by an 8-0 major decision in the final. The senior out of Lombard, Ill., has five pins on the season and has won 13 matches, both career bests.

“It was an awesome feeling. I feel like I did some good things, but there is still a lot to be worked on,” Walker said. “In a lot of my matches, I could have extended my lead and really could have closed the match even more by getting that final takedown or just really sealing the deal a little bit better.”

Four Illini finished second in their respective weight classes, including sophomore Jesse Delgado at 125 and senior Conrad Polz at 165. After winning his first four matches, Delgado fell to Connor Clarke of Iowa State 6-1.

Polz reached the title match after recording three pins but fell to Iowa State’s Michael Moreno 3-1. Illinois’ Zane Richards (133) and Matt Nora (157) also finished second in their weight classes.

Logan Arlis (133), Caleb Ervin (141), Steven Rodrigues (141) and Zac Brunson (157) placed third for the Illini, while Jeff Koepke (184) finished fourth. Illinois’ other heavyweight, Chris Lopez, rounded out the top five with a fifth-place finish.

“Overall, we wrestled all right,” assistant coach Jeremy Hunter said in a news release. “The results as a team were there, but it wasn’t what we wanted. There is a lot of stuff we need to work on to get better. This helped us for the Midlands (Championships) in a few weeks. We had decent competition, but it showed us what we truly need to focus on moving forward.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @yaboybernie11.