Redshirt junior Kellen Russell had his hands full this weekend — his status as the nation’s top-ranked wrestler in the 141-pound weight class was put to the test against the second and third-ranked grapplers.

So did the rest of the Michigan wrestling team, which was pitted against No. 5 Minnesota and No. 2 Iowa.

Russell was able to come away victorious both times — albeit narrowly, with both wins coming in sudden-death overtime — to extend his win streak to 30.

But for the Wolverines (5-3 Big Ten, 10-5 overall), Russell’s big wins weren’t enough. The Golden Gophers dropped Michigan, 22-12, on Friday in Ann Arbor, and on Sunday the Hawkeyes smothered Michigan in Iowa City, 30-7 — the Wolverines’ worst loss of the season.

“I think we were just beaten by two teams that were a little bit better than us,” Michigan coach Joe McFarland said Sunday. “We need to compete against teams like this if we want to get to that kind of level.”

Michigan has now dropped three straight heading into the final weekend of the regular season.

“Both teams are good teams, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just little things that everybody’s making mistakes with, myself included,” redshirt freshman Eric Grajales said Sunday. “This is the time for mistakes and to see what we’re doing wrong and change it before Big Tens and Nationals.”

Iowa (7-0, 15-0-1) flexed its muscles Sunday, looking every bit like the second-best team in the country.

Michigan quickly fell into a six-point hole as sophomore Sean Boyle was again pinned minutes into the opening match for the second time this weekend.

But Russell’s highly anticipated match lived up to the hype, and he got the Wolverines scoring.

The captain jumped out to an early lead, but it soon disappeared — and so, it seemed, did his chances of extending his streak, which dates back to 2009.

Down three points with well under a minute remaining, Russell scored a point with an escape, which he swiftly turned into a takedown with just 15 seconds left in regulation.

“He just refuses to lose,” McFarland said. “He’s a great competitor and he does what you need to do to win. And I think that’s a great example of why he’s a captain — that competitiveness, that fire, that desire to win.”

With the momentum in hand and his opponent left to wonder what just happened, Russell struck on a four-point move moments into the extra period to claim the victory.

“Once I got that takedown to tie, I knew he was broken a little bit and I was able to get a pretty easy takedown in overtime,” Russell said.

With one match against an unranked opponent left before the postseason, Russell has successfully maneuvered through the regular season having defended his high ranking.

“It was good to be able to go out there and get those wins,” Russell said. “It’s going to help with me with my seedings at Big Tens and (Nationals) and it showed some stuff I need to work on. I got a good look at some of the best guys in the country.”

Grajales took advantage of Michigan’s newfound momentum with an exclamation point, winning by major decision, 13-3.

The youngster fed off the hostile Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd en route to his fifth Big Ten victory.

“It was really good for me,” Grajales said Sunday. “Coming out here, seeing the crowd, I live for stuff like that. They’re booing our whole team, yelling — I love that environment. I just went out there and wrestled hard and scored some points.”

After closing their early deficit and trailing just 9-7, the Wolverines couldn’t keep the ball rolling. The Hawkeyes capitalized on the Michigan’s lack of composure, winning the meet’s final six matches.

Fifth-year senior Anthony Biondo and redshirt sophomores Hunter Collins and Ben Apland each held leads but were unable to close out their matches. Apland, ranked 10th, was leading in his match before he was pinned by Iowa’s unranked Blake Rasing.

“I don’t think we handled the pressure that well,” McFarland said. “A lot of these matches, they just out-hustled us. That was a good lesson for us. When you stop thinking offense, bad things start happening to you.”

The Wolverines were never able to get things going against Minnesota (6-0-1, 15-3-1).

The Gophers jumped out to a 9-0 lead — benefiting from a pin just minutes into the opening match.

The meet’s pivotal match featured Russell against No. 2 Mike Thorn.