Quick Season Overview
The season seems to be flying by and it’s hard to believe we are only about six weeks from the NCAA tournament! The team is doing great and wrestling well at this point. We are coming out of a hard training and competition phase, and will begin to slowly start our “peaking” phase of training for the post-season.
We are currently 9-2 in dual meets and ranked 16th in the NWCA Coaches Poll. Considering we were unranked at the beginning of the season, we are overperforming where our peers thought we should finish-although everyone close to the program knew we should be ranked.
Individually, we currently have 6 wrestlers ranked in the NCAA Coaches ranking. As a tournament team we have proved that we can compete at a high level finishing in the top 10 at CKLV and winning the Southern Scuffle. I’m excited for the end of the year tournaments as I think the individuals on the team have improved greatly since the beginning of the season.
The “Wake-Up” Call
Since the last newsletter we have had five dual meets which began with #2 Missouri at home in Maples and that dual was quite the wake up call as we got shut out 39-0. Often, adversity will shine a light on the areas that need work and the team bounced back with massive resilience as the weeks following the loss were the most productive since my arrival. I was impressed with the teams willingness to evolve their wrestling and work to show that their performance at the Missouri dual was not a true reflection of the ability of this team.
The Response
Following Missouri, we headed to Pennsylvania to wrestle UPenn and Drexel. In a clash of top 25 teams, we knew Penn was a tough team and it was likely to be a close dual, and the dual turned out to be a wild one. In a back and forth affair the dual ended up coming down to heavyweight, where Peter Ming used some acrobatics not typically seen by a heavyweight to secure a takedown which forced his opponent to his back for the pin, which ultimately secured the dual win. It was a great moment for the team and a necessary win following the Missouri weekend.
Things would not get easier, as the weekend following the Pennsylvania trip we faced a red hot Little Rock team who was coming to Stanford following huge wins over top 25 teams (at the time) Arizona State and Oregon State. Adding to Little Rocks momentum, they were the talk of social media considering their incredible rise as a program that just got their start 5 seasons ago. Needless to say, we didnt take Little Rock lightly.
The dual was an exciting one as there were a ton of back and forth matches, and the scores were very high. In fact, nearly 100 individual points (92) were scored in the first 4 matches! We were able to come out on top 24-15, through gritty wins by Provo, Miranda, Abas, Cardenas, and Darrah, coupled with a fall by Garvin, and a huge upset win by freshman Monteiro over the #18 ranked wrestler in the country. Overall, we were finding ways to win in tough situations and it was a fun dual to be a part of.
While Penn and Little Rock highlighted our most recent dual meet highlights we were also able to have dominant wins over Drexel (34-6) and Cal State Bakersfield (38-9).
Whats Next
In relation to dual meets we close out the PAC 12 schedule the next two weekends. We will face Cal Poly this weekend at home (11:00am Sunday, 2/11) and the following weekend we will travel to wrestle Arizona State on Saturday (12:00pm, 2/17) and come back to Stanford to wrestle Oregon State (2:00pm, 2/18).
We have a bit of a competitive break following the Oregon State dual, and then we compete in our postseason at the PAC 12, Sunday, March 12, which will qualify our wrestlers for the NCAA tournament in Kansas City, March 21-23.
It’s been a great season so far and we are excited to see what happens in the final weeks of the season. The team has improved greatly from the beginning of the year and is working hard to continue that growth, and I think we are in a great position to continue to make some noise through the post-season.
