With a victory under their belt against Loras College, the vikings prepare for Cornell College, on Wednesday the 16th, who has beaten them in the last two years.
Having wrestled against Cornell last year, the team is facing similar problems this year.
“(Cornell) was a dog fight.”, said head coach Eric Juergens, “and again there was letdowns, last year and this year there has been a repeat we struggled last year with having a full line up it was ineligibility or guy cutting weight or injury, we just could not keep guys in line up.”
Although the troubles with injuries and unknown positions, the men still believe they can win against Cornell.
“If we can have guys step up and compete and just shave little victories (we can win)”,
said captain John Seamen, “ So we have to get those extra points and keep them from giving them away.”
Winning against Loras has been a great win for the guys and for the team to know where
they stand.
“(Loras) is a good team, a solid program”, said Juergens, “so it was a good win for our
program, good win for the guys.”
In having 3 of their 10 starters out, the team is looking for new fillers and having the
matches be the deciding factors.
“We have beat Cornell (3 years ago) and I think we should be fine again it’s just going to
take guys stepping up in weight spots.”, said Seamen, “ Like I said we have lost some starters
and we have a couple of weights that we don’t really know what’s going to happen and we are
just waiting for someone to step in and take them over.”
Using the Loras meet to help prepare for the Cornell meet, the team pinpoints their need
for improvement.
“We looked stagnant at our last duel, we didn’t put on the offense that we needed to and
we gave up a lot of takedowns.”, said Seamen, “So we worked a lot, this weekend, with just
opening up our offense and really attacking and having a faster pace during our matches.”
All in all, coach Juergens believes in his team, and he lets them know where they are
physically and mentally when he talks to the team.
“Things you can control versus things you can’t. Worrying does nothing, worrying has
never done anything, has never made anyone better or prepared.”, said Juergens, “We can control
our preparation and then the fight during the match, everything outside of that is uncontrollable,
if they can recognize that and learn to let that stress go, it is just going to make them a better
performer out on the mat.”
The team is hitting a rough patch, but they are preparing and adapting to the situations and just going through one meet at a time.