The wrestling season doesn’t officially kick off until Nov. 10 when the N.C. State Open takes place at Reynolds Coliseum, but the team is already preparing for that day.
The wrestlers have been hard at work for months now, undergoing intense conditioning workouts in an effort to improve upon their 2006-2007 ACC championship campaign.
For highly-touted freshman Colton Palmer, the amount of off-season conditioning has been a bit more than he expected at this point.
“It’s a lot of running, a whole lot of running,” Palmer said. “It almost seems like we’re the track team or something.”
But all that running is just the tip of the iceberg.
When senior Kody Hamrah talked about “stadiums,” a sly smile crept across his face.
“We have stadium workouts every Thursday, and everybody always hates that,” Hamrah said. “But they’re good. We’ve got them every week. They’re not the best part of preseason, but it gets us pumped.”
Every Thursday the team makes its way out to Carter-Finley Stadium to do “buddy carries,” which is the “hardest thing” they’ve been doing, according to sophomore Taylor Cummings.
“Stadiums” consist of carrying a teammate — of equal weight — to the top of the steps of Carter-Finley Stadium. The two largest wrestlers on the roster are listed at 285-pounds apiece.
The team is motivated to continue its winning ways following one of the more successful years in program history.
It won the ACC championships by a mile — securing victory before the individual finals even started. The Wolfpack had eight wrestlers in the finals at Reynolds Coliseum — five taking home individual ACC titles.
One of those victors, freshman 141-pounder Darrion Caldwell, advanced all the way to the NCAA championships. He was narrowly defeated by the undefeated No. 1 seed, Ryan Lang of Northwestern, and was eventually eliminated one match short of All-American honors.
“I’ve been watching film. I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Caldwell said. “I know I don’t want to lose like I did last year — that’s going to be a drive, definitely. I’m going to tell you now, I hope to win a national championship this year. Anything less than a national championship — I won’t be satisfied.”
But Caldwell will have to do it in a higher weight class, which he said would be “157 if everything falls into place.”
Caldwell, like many other teammates, will be forced to change his weight class in order to fill the gaps left by the graduation — and departure — of several starters.
Former ACC champ Jainor Palma and Garrett Cummings have finished their eligibility. Another former ACC champ, rising senior Jeremy Colbert, left the team this summer for undisclosed reasons.
Coach Carter Jordan said there would be “a lot of battles” between the freshmen and some of the veterans, in order to put together a strong lineup.
“Our goals are always to compete for the ACC championship and finish in the top 20,” Jordan said. “We really felt like we had a shot to do both of those things last year. We really feel good about that again this year.”
Jordan pointed to last year’s success as the underlying reason the team has worked so hard in the off-season.
“In our sport, success breeds success, and success breeds confidence,” Jordan said. “It’s motivating, especially for some of the younger kids who couldn’t break the lineup last year, who now see an opportunity to be in the lineup and be part of a championship team. It’s an exciting time.”
