The wrestling team traveled to Chapel Hill Saturday for their first match of the season in the ACC/Big Ten Clash and faced national powerhouses Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan State.
N.C. State got off to a rocky start, falling to No. 9 Illinois by a score of 40-7. While it was not the start coach Carter Jordan and the Wolfpack were looking for, their effort throughout the rest of the day left them proud of their performance. Jordan discussed how pleased he was with how hard the Pack wrestled against both Michigan State and Wisconsin.
“We improved after the first match,” Jordan said. “In the next two duals, while we did not win them, there was a lot of improvement in our intensity.”
The Pack lost to Michigan State with a score of 23-13 and followed that with the team’s best effort of the day in a match against No. 12 Wisconsin. State fought extremely hard and nearly pulled off its first victory of the day before falling 20-15. Jordan was much happier with the Michigan State and Wisconsin matches.
“I was real pleased, especially with the way we wrestled Wisconsin,” Jordan said. “I thought we were the more aggressive team.”
One major bright spot was star senior Darrion Caldwell who had yet another outstanding performance, winning all three of his matches on the day. He defeated both 14th ranked Troy Tirapelle of Illinois and 7th ranked Kyle Ruschell of Wisconsin by a score of 8-4. Perhaps his most impressive match was his complete domination of David Cheza of Michigan State, who he pinned in just one minute and six seconds. Jordan discussed just how dominant Caldwell was throughout the day.
“He [Ruschell] was ranked 7th by one outfit and 5th by another and it wasn’t close,” he said. “The Michigan State kid [Cheza] is ranked in the top 20 and he pinned him like it was yeoman’s work.”
Though the record after the weekend’s matches might make it seem as though the trip to Chapel Hill was a failure, Caldwell said the experience the team gained by wrestling such stiff competition will be very valuable throughout the season.
“Wrestling against the best guys in the country is what I love to do,” Caldwell said. “I love the challenge.”