Although the Big Ten season is in the books, the MSU wrestling team still has some work to do before the conference tournament in the first week of March.
The Spartans (3-9 overall, 1-7 Big Ten) will travel to Edinboro, Penn., on Friday for a dual against No. 20 Edinboro followed by the Edinboro Open on Saturday, an all-day tournament where the Spartans will see a slew of competitors they typically would not see during a regular season.
MSU is hoping to snap a losing streak of five straight duals, all of which came against teams ranked in the top 25. The Spartans are 0-3 against the Fighting Scots in series history, but head coach Tom Minkel thinks MSU’s grueling schedule could help the Spartans when it comes to Edinboro on Friday night.
“We’re going to have to wrestle really well to beat them, but they don’t appear to be as strong as some of the other teams we’ve wrestled recently,” Minkel said. “We’ve seen a bunch of top-10 teams lately and taken three or four matches from them, so I think we could be in the position to take a few more matches in this one.”
Redshirt freshman 197-pounder Nick McDiarmid said the varied opponents allows for him to get a sense of other wrestling styles that can help him in the upcoming tournaments. He specifically noted that wrestlers in Pennsylvania have a different style than most, and he relishes the opportunity to compete against wrestlers who change it up.
“I always feel like I always learn something when I go there, because they’re always innovative in the new moves that they’re doing,” he said.
McDiarmid added that he has seen vast improvements in these past few weeks and hopes the Spartans can continue as tournament season approaches.
“It’s not one specific thing that we can improve on, it’s just continuing to get better at the things we’ve been working on, like being tougher on top and riding kids harder,” he said.
Cutting your losses
A couple wrestlers noted the quick turnaround between the dual and the tournament will be difficult for them. Junior 149-pounder Dan Osterman said maintaining his weight for the weigh-in might be problematic for himself and his teammates.
Some wrestlers struggle with keeping their weight down to stay wrestling in their classes. Dropping weight can involve the wrestler reducing the amount of hydration before a meet. After weighing in, the wrestler will drink more fluids to keep his hydration at a healthy level, which also increases the wrestler’s weight.
“Usually you have a day to get your weight back down (after a dual),” Osterman said. “But we’re wrestling on Friday night and then again on Saturday morning, and we have to weigh in at 7 in the morning. So there’s not a lot of time to get weight back down and hydrate on Friday, then cut it back down on Saturday.”
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