Kasey Cates and Jobi Hambrick advanced to the championship semi- finals at the Concordia University Open before losing their first matches of the tournament. Cates’s loss came to Austin Bautista (UW-Whitewater). Bautista was the number one seed in the tournament and is also currently ranked 2nd in the NCAA D-3. Cates finished 4-3 on the day and in sixth place becoming HLG’s fourth NAIA National Tournament Qualifier of the season. Hambrick lost his semi-final match 8-7 to the number 2 seed Chris Karl (UW-Stevens Point) who also went on to win the tournament. Karl is also ranked by D3 wrestling in the top 20 NCAA D-3 wrestlers. Our other wrestlers did not finish as well as Cates and Hambrick, but as a team we were able to garner 13 wins on the day! Seth Revelle, Josh Smith, Kyle Blankenship, and Nathan Downs all made contributions to the win column.
Once again I had many compliments shared from other college coaches on the marked improvement of this year’s team over last season. Here is one such comment sent to me by e-mail just even today, “I wanted to tell you on Saturday how good your team looked. You have done a great job with that program. It is hard to believe that your program is only in the second year. You will have to share your success secrets with me. ;-)” The keys to our success this season have simply been having better team cohesion and the wrestler’s hard work. Our wrestlers have bought into our philosophy and it is paying off on the mat and others are noticing. The types of statements above from other coaches, officials, and fans are very encouraging to us as coaches and next season we hope to build on top of the success our wrestlers are experience this season.
The next major challenge our wrestlers will face over this Thanksgiving Break is keeping their weight down. To all you Moms, Dads, Grandpas, Grandmas and Uncles and Aunts -one piece of pie is enough!;-) Don’t make them eat a whole pie!;-) The wrestlers have to make weight two days in a row the week they return back to campus!
Once again I had many compliments shared from other college coaches on the marked improvement of this year’s team over last season. Here is one such comment sent to me by e-mail just even today, “I wanted to tell you on Saturday how good your team looked. You have done a great job with that program. It is hard to believe that your program is only in the second year. You will have to share your success secrets with me. ;-)” The keys to our success this season have simply been having better team cohesion and the wrestler’s hard work. Our wrestlers have bought into our philosophy and it is paying off on the mat and others are noticing. The types of statements above from other coaches, officials, and fans are very encouraging to us as coaches and next season we hope to build on top of the success our wrestlers are experience this season.
The next major challenge our wrestlers will face over this Thanksgiving Break is keeping their weight down. To all you Moms, Dads, Grandpas, Grandmas and Uncles and Aunts -one piece of pie is enough!;-) Don’t make them eat a whole pie!;-) The wrestlers have to make weight two days in a row the week they return back to campus!
1 comment:
Good job Trojans....
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