Competing without All-American 125-pound Jesse Delgado and 133-pound Daryl Thomas did not deter the Illinois wrestling team from securing a victory against Purdue in its home-opener Friday.

In front of a crowd of 1,069 fans at Huff Hall, the Illini won seven of their 10 matches and gained bonus points from B.J. Futrell, Matt Nora and Tony Dallago to claim the border battle 29-10.

Dominic Olivieri filled in for the injured Delgado at 125 while Logan Arlis wrestled in place of Thomas at 133. Delgado and Thomas are both expected to return for Friday’s match against Nebraska.

“I think we performed well,” senior Mario Gonzales said. “We were missing our starters at 125 and 133 and those were two matches we lost. They were looking a little flat that day but overall as a team we started off the Big Ten dual season with a win, which is good.”

Gonzalez, who wrestles at 197 pounds, defeated No. 18 Braden Atwood by an 11-4 decision, giving him his seventh win of the young season.

“Honestly, I just went in the ring and told myself, ‘There’s no way this guy can beat me,’” he said. “When the whistle blew, I just kept moving forward and forward and good things happened. I pretty much dominated the match.”

Gonzalez was not the only Illini to control his match. Jordan Blanton, ranked No. 4 at 174 pounds, defeated Chad Welch 10-2, Futrell moved past Brandon Nelson 13-5 at 141 and No. 7 Conrad Polz overpowered Pat Robinson 10-3 at 165.

Two of the more impressive victories for the Illini came from 184-pound Dallago, who pinned Andy Wiseman in 1 minute, 25 seconds, and from 157-pound redshirt freshman Matt Nora, who pinned returning NCAA qualifier Tommy Churchard in 4:34.

“It was amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better moment for my first Big Ten match,” Nora said. “But most of all I have been working really hard this year, harder than I ever have, and it feels great to finally have some of the hard work and dedication pay off.”

Nora found himself down 3-0 early in the match but turned Churchard on his back to record his third pin of the season.

“I knew that if I just kept the pressure on and kept working hard, I knew that he would break eventually.” Nora said.

Head coach Jim Heffernan said he was very pleased with his team’s performance on Friday night.

“We tell our guys every day, ‘If you wrestle hard, you have a chance to win every match,’ and I think that’s what a lot of them did tonight,” Heffernan said in a press release. “Tony looked good and was pretty excited all week. Nice to start the weekend with a win and give our guys a few more days to heal. We need our guys to get healthy, it’s very critical.”

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