When most people think of Austin DeSanto they think him blowing the roof off of Carver Hawkeye with a huge victories against people like Nick Suriano and Seth Gross. 

One thing that DeSanto is not known for his freestyle acumen.  As a matter of fact, the only event that I can think of where DeSanto wrestled freestyle was at the Hawkeye Wrestling Club’s event two weeks ago where he dropped an 11-3 decision to NJRTC’s Bryce Meredith. At the HWC event DeSanto’s lack of freestyle experience was evident, the bulk of those 11 points that he gave up were were on non-controlled exposure. 

Austin DeSanto is registered for the U23 National this coming weekend in what, most would consider, a wide open 61kg weight class. And if you’re a Hawkeye fan or just an ADS fan there is some good news and some bad news. 

The Bad News

Im not a pessimist, but I DO like attacking problems first, so we're going to start with the bad news. First of which is that RBY kind of wrote the playbook on just how to neutralize DeSanto’s primary offense, which is his left handed fireman’s dump. The success of that dump is largely predicated on whether or not DeSanto can get the right hand on that inside tie up. Getting to an inside tie becomes extremely difficult when your opponent keeps their left arm behind their back. 

Watch the difference between RBY’s loss to DeSanto in 2019 Big Ten Consi-Semis and first time they meet in the 2019-20 season. 

Clearly the biggest adjustment that Young made was making it impossible for DeSanto to get to his inside tie off the whistle forcing DeSanto to drop in on his secondary attack, his lefty sweep. 

More Bad News

So, if DeSanto has trouble getting to his primary attack, then surely he can fall back on a secondary attack, right? Well, yes and no. Austin DeSanto has a left handed single leg that serves as his secondary attack. The problem is that he gets stuck underneath guys for far too long. In folkstyle that does not present that big of a problem, but in freestyle it's a major issue. In the video below you’ll see ADS drop in on a single against Roman Bravo-Young and there is a point in which DeSanto has a hold of the ankle and he has a decision to make. He can either try and run the corner on the single leg while he has the ankle or he can get head height and come out the back door. But instead of doing either DeSanto sinks down on his haunches and lets RBY cover his head with his hips. 

That split second of indecision is the biggest problem for Austin right now. Bryce Meredith took full advantage of the position at the Showdown Open two weeks ago tilting and rolling DeSanto through numerous times. 

The Good News

Chin up, Hawk faithful, there is a lot to be excited about with DeSanto wrestling freestyle. First, without the sting of big losses many of these positional problems go overlooked. Second, the areas in which DeSanto needs the most attention are very fixable with a concerted effort, and effort never seems to be a problem with DeSanto. 

The best news of all if you want to see DeSanto successful at the next level is that he DOES have offensive attacks that can come up big for him in a freestyle forum. Take, for instance, this head-outside single leg  that DeSanto took in the opening seconds of his third place match against Seth Gross at Big Tens. Everyone knows that Gross has one of the country’s best belly-wizzers, so watch how DeSanto puts his head to the outside on this attack to alleviate the pressure from Gross’ hips and to stop any thought of a belly whizzer.

If this match was wrestled in freestyle DeSanto would be the one collecting non-controlled exposure points.