Despite his team’s 26-15 win in its opening ACC match over Duke on Wednesday, coach Carter Jordan had only two words to describe the wrestling team’s performance: “terrible” and “awful.”
After jumping out to a 9-0 lead following the first two matches, the Wolfpack allowed the Blue Devils to take four of the next six matches to close to within one point at 16-15 before State won the final two contests to pull away.
Jordan’s displeasure with the performance of the wrestlers in the middle weight classes prompted the coach to have the public address announcer announce that immediately following the match the team was to report to the Weisiger-Brown building for practice, including members of the team who were in attendance who did not participate in Wednesday’s match.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Jordan said after the match. “I’m glad this happened. We’re going to practice right now to work on it.”
Part of the problem for State (6-4) in the middle weight classes could have been due to injuries. The majority of the Blue Devils’ wins were against the Pack’s backup wrestlers.
Jordan, however, wouldn’t accept that as an excuse.
“Even though three of the four matches Duke won were against our non-starters, that’s not the issue,” he said. “The issue is they out hustled us in spots tonight. The credit goes to [Duke], but that should not happen.”
Senior heavyweight Jainor Palma echoed the coach’s assessment and refused to let the injuries be a crutch for the team’s lackluster execution.
“Our backups are talented enough that they should have stepped up and done a better job,” Palma said.
Perennially, the Blue Devils (3-3) are at or near the bottom of the conference in wrestling — 2-8 in the ACC over the past two seasons — prompting some concern on Jordan’s part for the team’s chances against the rest of the league.
“You have to show up every night,” Jordan said. “You can’t take a night off. I was really disappointed in our effort.”
But for the 18th-ranked Palma, who won his match by pin in just 1:06, the team’s ACC debut was more of a wake-up call than a cause for worry.
“It doesn’t concern me, but it definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” he said. “We know we’re a lot better than that. To be the [ACC] champs we’re going to have to wrestle a lot better than that. And we can.”
One bright spot for the Pack on the injury front is the recent wrestling of junior Kody Hamrah, who won his fifth straight match to improve to 11-5 on the season as he has battled knee problems since the beginning of last season.
“I’m definitely getting there,” Hamrah said. “I started off the season kind of slow, but I feel good right now.”
State’s next match is Saturday at Reynolds Coliseum against nonconference opponent Newberry, before the Pack travels to Chapel Hill to face ACC rival and defending ACC champion North Carolina on Jan. 19.
