Wrestling opens home slate

By Danny Albers

Wrestling is coming home after being on the road for the first month of the season.

The Huskies (2-5) look to gain some momentum on the season and get closer to .500 when they take on the Buena Vista Beavers 10 a.m. Saturday and the Tiffin Dragons 2 p.m. Saturday in the Huskie Duals in DeKalb. The Beavers and Dragons are competing in their first team contests.

The Beavers are coming off of a disappointing 2013 season. They finished 3-9 and placed eighth out of 11 on March 1 in the Regional Tournament, missing the NCAA Championships.

The Beavers bring a team to DeKalb that is full of sophomores and freshmen as they have only five upperclassmen on the 20-man roster. The Beavers don’t have a wrestler that is over .500 in their collegiate career.

“We’re really focusing on ourselves,” said head coach Ryan Ludwig. “We’re really focusing on our attack and working our way up from bottom position. I think they’re going to come out with a lot of fire, scrap and attitude. We’re just going to come out with the same attitude and try to match them.”

The Huskies will face Tiffin to cap off the day. Both competed last month in the Michigan State Open. Tiffin had a rough showing at the open, where it had nobody place.

“We saw them a bit at the open. They had a lot of tough competitors,” Ludwig said. “We expect a lot of competition against those guys.”

Tiffin is coming off of a 2-7 record last season. They placed 14 of 17 teams at the NCAA Div. II Midwest Super Regional to end their season.

The Huskies could use a 2-0 weekend to jumps tart their engine with a tough trio of matches Nov. 29 at the Journeymen/ASICS Northeast Duals.

“Nothing matters right now accept the task ahead of us, and that’s Buena Vista at 10 a.m. Saturday,” Ludwig said.