Friday evening the Augustana Wrestlers hosted University of Wisconsin-Platteville for a dual meet. The Vikings looked to snap their streak of seven consecutive losses in dual meets but were unsuccessful losing the meet by a score of 28-13.
Augustana started the meet out with a forfeit loss at the 125-pound class and quickly went down six to nothing. The Vikings then sent senior, Brendan Gould, to the mat for the 133-pound match up against Platteville’s Scott Arenson. Gould went down six to nothing shortly before the end of the first period but was able to bring it within one before the final whistle sounded.
Following Gould’s 6-5 loss, the Vikings were trailing nine to nothing before three straight wins from Dale Charlier, Matt Sears, and Neil O’Shaughnessy.  The win for junior, Dale Charlier, brought him to 17 victories on the year which is tied for the team lead.
Senior, Matt Sears, who has had some weight certification problems in the past got the victory at 149 pounds. Sears is a leader for the Vikings and has decided not to focus on his record this time around.
“We have a young team because of a lot of injuries or guys not getting down to weight. You have to get in their minds and tell them who cares about the record? You are getting better every single day,” said Sears.
Following the win from the freshman, Neil O’Shaughnessy, the Vikings suffered four straight losses before sophomore, Adarios Jones could stop the bleeding at the 285-pound match winning by a score of 21-8.
Jones moved to 15-0 on the season and will be one of the main points of emphasis when it comes to making noise in the national meets according to head coach, Tony Willaert.
“We can have some great individual success, not necessarily great team success, but gaining big points from individuals will be big for us. We are really excited for what we could do in conference and national meets,” said Willaert.
The Vikings will be in action next at the Pete Willson Invitational on January 26-27. Augustana has dropped to 1-10 on the season in dual meets and will take on University of Chicago February 2nd to close out their season before the CCIW championships.