In 22 years of coaching, Minkel has been to Wisconsin many times, and said it’s a great venue to compete in.

“They wrestle in their old field house, next to Camp Randall Stadium, and the practice room is in Camp Randall,” he said. “It’s a good venue, and they traditionally get very good crowds. The guys, for the most part, felt pretty good about last weekend, and we’ll continue to kind of tweak that and have a good duel both on Friday and Saturday.”

One of the biggest challenges the wrestlers will have to face is keeping their weight with two weigh-ins on consecutive days, and senior David Cheza said it’s going to be tough for the wrestlers.

“The only downside is having to manage your weight during that time,” Cheza said. “When we weigh in for the Wisconsin duel, people are going to want to eat and rehydrate and feel good for that duel, but they can’t go overboard because we’re going to have to weigh in right away the next day.”

In a conference as tough as the Big Ten, sophomore John Rizqallah said Wisconsin is one of the teams the Spartans need to beat if they’re going to move up in the rankings.

“We don’t look past anybody; we don’t look past any other teams,” Rizqallah said. “We wrestle everybody like we’re wrestling (the best).”

He said anything less than a pair of wins for the Spartans this weekend would be a disappointment.
“I expect to come out 2-0, and the team, too,” Rizqallah said. “We don’t plan to lose; we didn’t plan to lose to Edinboro, but things don’t always go your way.”

If there is one piece of advice Minkel has for his team on this difficult road trip, he said it would be to focus on the things that matter and everything else will take care of itself.

“You’ve got to stay disciplined and in competition mode Friday night and not really relax until we’re out of there Saturday afternoon,” Minkel said. “We’ll enjoy that, and hopefully we can come out of there with a victory.”