Wrestling takes a break from dual meet action this weekend, but there will not be a break from competition.

Saturday, the Huskies will make the short drive to Palatine, Ill., and compete in the Harper Open at Harper College.

In open tournaments wrestlers do not wrestle for their team; they wrestle as individuals and take part in tournaments at their respective weight classes.

This will be the fourth open tournament that NIU will compete in. Earlier this season, the Huskies competed in the Eastern Michigan open and 13 wrestlers made the podium.

At the Kaufman-Brand Open, NIU was able to do one better, placing 14 athletes on the podium.

NIU’s most recent open tournament was the Flash Flanagan Open, where they scored nine points.

This weekend’s open tournament gives the Huskie reserve wrestlers and redshirt wrestlers a chance to compete against someone other than their teammates, which coach Ryan Ludwig said is always nice.

“Yeah, it’s a great opportunity,” Ludwig said. “It gives the guys this deep in the season that haven’t seen dual meet action in a while, it gives them the opportunity to go out and compete. And also it gives our guys in redshirt another opportunity to go out and compete in a match and to gain the experience we expect them to during their redshirt year.”

Ludwig said being able to give the wrestlers redshirting a chance to go out and compete is very important.

“Oh, it’s huge,” Ludwig said. ”You train as much as we do and as hard as we do, and to not go out and lay it on the line, that’s rough. So we make sure these guys get a chance to go out and compete and lay it on the line at least once every couple of weeks if not every week. We make sure we scout out all the open tournaments around the general region.”

Sophomore reserve Tyler Argue, who wrestles at 141 pounds, said it is important for the reserves and redshirts to go out and represent NIU well.

“Well, I think it’s important just to go out and show everybody how hard we’ve been working,” Argue said. “[To] show that NIU isn’t just gonna train 10 guys that go out there and wrestle–that everybody that they recruited is developing.”