Your future, our focus
Team Hosts Western, Great Falls This Week
Fresh off a fourth-place finish at the National Duals, the No. 7 Northwest College wrestling team will host Western Wyoming on Thursday and the University of Great Falls on Friday in home wrestling action. For fans of the Trappers, the events should provide an opportunity to witness NWC at full strength for the first time this season.
“We’re healthy now and we came through the weekend without injuries,” said Trapper head coach Jim Zeigler. “We’ll use the same lineup we had in Illinois this past weekend on the mat this Thursday against Western.”
That was not the case earlier this year when the Trappers were forced to cobble together a lineup in Rock Springs.
“We’re stronger now. The kids are in better shape,” said Zeigler. “That first semester, it’s a little easier to get injured. Now they’re not quite as frequent.”
Having a consistent lineup has also helped the team in other ways.
“The confidence level goes up once that lineup is set,” said Zeigler. “The kids can focus on wrestling when you’re not concerned about whether someone will have to shift weights.”
Which isn’t to say the Trappers won’t have to make a strategic move every now and then. A case in point could be Friday’s dual against Great Falls.
“They have 40 kids they could bring,” said Zeigler. “They can throw all sorts of different combinations on the mat against us. We won’t know until they get here what we’re getting.”
Whatever they wind up facing, it’s hard to imagine the Trappers’ experience at the National Duals, where they faced three of the top four teams in the nation, won’t come in handy.
“We wrestled really well against Lincoln that first night,” Zeigler said of his team’s performance. “They were ranked No. 4 and they’re a really solid team. We wrestled well from the top to the bottom and managed to keep winning match after match.”
The Trappers won the first eight matches to post a 35-0 lead at one point before a pair of Lincoln wins at the top two weights made the final score 35-9. The team also improved its performance against No. 2 Clackamas. The Trappers had lost eight of 10 matches in an earlier dual against the school.
In Illinois last weekend, the Trappers improved to four wins and were in a position to win two others.
“Add those two more if we see them again and who knows,” Zeigler said.
Start time for both tonight’s (Thursday’s) dual against Western and Friday’s dual against Great Falls will be at 7:30 p.m.