Reminiscent of basketball coach Sidney Lowe, coach Carter Jordan emerged from the Reynolds Coliseum locker room just before his team’s first match Wednesday night sporting a red sport coat. And like Lowe, he was able to engineer a victory against North Carolina.
For Jordan and N.C. State it was the first win over the Tar Heels in a little more than two years.
“There’s nothing better than beating [Carolina],” Jordan said. “I’m an alum, so it means a lot to me. I won’t sleep tonight.”
Senior heavyweight Jainor Palma said he noticed a difference in the atmosphere as soon as he entered the gym.
“It was different warming up tonight,” Palma said. “We had confidence, and we knew we were going to win tonight. And I haven’t seen that in awhile.”
After dropping three of the first four bouts and trailing by five, the Wolfpack bounced back to take five of the final six weight classes. Two of those bouts resulted in six points — an injury default by junior Kody Hamrah’s opponent and a pin by junior Jeremy Colbert.
Colbert — the 2006 ACC champion — has struggled at times this season and was 5-9 overall and 1-2 in the conference heading into the match. But just 4:09 into his bout, Colbert dropped the Heels’ Daniel Llamas to the mat and pinned him.
“This is a real relief,” Colbert said about his victory. “I feel like I’m finally getting to where I can wrestle like I’m supposed to be wrestling. It’s like a weight being lifted off your shoulders.”
At 197 pounds — the next-to-last bout of the match — redshirt sophomore Ryan Goodman beat Carolina’s David Dashiell and ended any chance the Heels had of making a comeback.
But despite the irrelevance to the team score, the heavyweight bout had significance to both wrestlers individually.
Palma and the Heels’ Spencer Nadolsky are both ranked in the top 10 in the nation in their weight class, and Palma had beaten Nadolsky only once in his college career. But after a scoreless first period, Palma scored twice to edge out the Carolina senior for the second consecutive time by a score of 2-1.
Palma said his two wins over Nadolsky this season have him looking toward an ACC championship and a good showing nationally.
“The plan is to be seeded really well for the [postseason] tournaments,” the Cary native said. “So I feel good. And I’ve got a slight advantage over [Nadolsky] right now.”
As for the team, the win moves State to 9-7 overall and 2-2 in the ACC and follows a win against nationally-ranked Indiana over the weekend, which Jordan described as “as big a win as we’ve had in 15 years.”
“We’re on a roll now,” Jordan said. “We’re starting to peak at the right time. It doesn’t do you any good to be good in January. You need to be good now and in March.”
