Despite many nagging injuries, NIU’s wrestling team came away with an impressive showing this weekend at the Illinois Illini Open.

Anton Kossakowski was NIU’s top performer, taking first place in the 177-pound weight class in the freshman division.

“I was impressed with Anton’s performance this weekend,” Huskie coach Ed Vatch said. “Anton can go with anyone in the country. He’s as physical as anyone I’ve seen this year. It’s a good thing Anton is on our side.”

Huskie heavyweight Mark Kuehl won his weight class in the freshman division as well.

“Kuehl looks great. The kid shows a lot of heart,” Vatch said.

Freshmen Bill Bracken at 126 pounds, Steve Kurkjian and Scott Swanson at 118 pounds finished second, fourth, and sixth in their respective weight classes.

Ted Anderson finished fourth at 167 pounds and Tino Gonzalez took fifth at 126 pounds in the open portion of the tournament.

Senior Tim Cocco came back from a rib injury to finish fifth in the open 158-pound weight class.

“My ribs are feeling a lot better,” Cocco said. “I had no problem with them at all this weekend.”

Cocco said he is pleased with the direction the team is heading.

“We are getting better because we are wrestling better schools,” Cocco said. “It does us more good to wrestle better teams than to wrestle weak teams.

“You do not want to wrestle weak teams so you can say you won a tournament, because you don’t better yourself as a wrestler that way.”

Vatch is going to work his troops harder in practice this week than in any other week this season to gear up for the Huskie-hosted Northern Illinois Duals this Saturday at 10 a.m. at Chick Evans Field House.

“We’re going to do a lot of wrestling and train hard this week,” Vatch said. “We’re going to do something different in that we’re going to have different individual days of practice. One day might be an Anton (Kossakowski) day in which we work on as a team what Anton needs work on and learn as a team how to do it correctly.”