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Mountaineers out-muscle Wildcats, maintain second in SoCon |
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Thursday, 07 February 2008 |
 Scott Ervin pins a fellow ASU wrestler during a scrimmage. Photo by Holt Menzies
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by ERIK RHYNE
Sports Reporter
Even in their dominating 38-8 victory over Davidson College on Feb. 5, Appalachian State University’s wrestling team still nit-picked their performance.
“I think our team wrestled well, but not great,” ASU head coach Paul Mance said. “It wasn’t a fantastic match. A lot of kids did a really good job, but a couple of kids didn’t wrestle up to their potential. All in all, the team was well prepared and wrestled a good match.”
Even with such a lopsided score, the match did not really break open until the fourth match.
Leading 6-5 and heading into the 149-pound class, Mountaineer senior
Scott Ervin took only 55 seconds to pin his opponent. Senior Eddie
Hutchinson pinned his opponent in 31 seconds in the 157-pound match.
What once was a one point lead broke open to a 22-5 advantage for Appalachian.
“That took a little wind out of their sail,” Mance said. “That makes it
hard for the rest of their guys to go out and wrestle. They really did
well in the first three matches.”
The beginning of the meet saw the Wildcats jump out to an early 5-0 with a technical fall in the 125-pound class.
The Mountaineers then took control, winning eight of the following nine
matches. The second loss came to ASU senior Neal Martin in the
174-pound class.
“Overall, if we wrestled like we should have and can, we would have
shut them out,” Ervin said. “[Martin] can wrestle way better. He’s just
coming off an injury and getting back into it. Even though it was a
good night for some of us individually, we could have had a better
night as a team.”
The win improves the Mountaineers to 9-7 overall and 2-1 in the
Southern Conference. Davidson fell to 1-9 overall and 0-4 in the SoCon.
The Wildcats’ lineup, filled primarily with underclassmen, has led to a struggling season for the team.
“The problem that Davidson has right now is that he’s only got 12 or 13
wrestlers,” Mance said. “They just don’t have the backups...They have
to wrestle their first string guys against their first string guys at
practice. That makes it tough.”
As for the Mountaineers, they are sitting comfortably in second place
of the SoCon behind the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. In the
one match ASU and UTC faced each other, the Mocs won 27-9.
“I think we have a good strong team for the SoCon,” Mance said. We’re
hoping to end up 4-1 in the conference and take second place to
Chattanooga. They are a really tough team. We knew it was tough to beat
those guys this year. If we continue to wrestle well, we should be okay
the rest of the year.”
As Appalachian heads down the stretch, they firmly believe they will peak in time for the SoCon Championships in March.
“We definitely have a lot of stuff to improve on,” Ervin said. “[But] I think we’re going to peak at the right time.”
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