The quest for a third straight Southern Conference wrestling championship begins tonight for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in Boiling Springs, N.C.
The Mocs last lost a conference meet on Feb. 5, 2012 — 41-17 at home to Appalachian State — and have a 15-match win streak.
Tonight’s opponent is Gardner-Webb, which is in its fourth SoCon season. The Bulldogs have finished no higher than fifth and continue to look for their first winning season in the league.
“They have some good guys,” Mocs coach Heath Eslinger said. “They’re really good at 141 pounds; they have a conference tournament champion at 174 and a top 20-type kid at 165.”
The 141-pounder, who’ll challenge Michael Pongracz, is Chris Vassar, who has a 5-3 overall record but has yet to wrestle a SoCon match. He has split time with Ryan Hull (2-9, 0-1). The 174-pounder who won the conference in 2013 is Hunter Gamble (7-6, 0-0), and he’ll likely square off with 2014 SoCon champion Levi Clemons. At 165 pounds, Mocs newcomer Justin Lampe will challenge Austin Trott (16-4, 1-0).
For the time being, UTC seems to have settled on a starting 10. In addition to Pongracz, Clemons and Lampe, the Mocs plan to start nationally ranked Sean Boyle (125) and Nick Soto (133) along with Shawn Greevy (149), Austin Sams (157), John Shrader (184), Scottie Boykin (197) and Jared Johnson 285.
Soto, Sams and Johnson are coming off outstanding weekends at the Virginia Duals, each going 4-0 as the team went 2-2 with narrow losses to West Virginia and Edinboro and resounding victories over Kent State and Nebraska-Kearney.
The losses to West Virginia and Edinboro, at the time ranked 10th nationally, were somewhat disturbing to the unflappable Eslinger.
“I don’t know that it’s frustrating,” he said of several 5-5 splits over the last month that resulted in losses for the Mocs. “Our schedule isn’t set up to wrestle and win without wrestling great. You don’t beat Edinboro by wrestling just good. We have five or six guys that have been wrestling really well, and we have a couple that need to go from wrestling good to wrestling great.”
His philosophy is to enjoy the process.
“You have to, whether things are going 100 percent your way, 50 percent your way or totally against you,” he said.
Johnson (20-6) is currently the Mocs’ only 20-win wrestler, but Boyle and Soto are sitting on 19.
Tonight’s meet starts at 6, and the Mocs immediately will hop back into a van for the ride home because they’ll face SoCon opponent No. 2, Campbell, on Sunday at 2 p.m. at Maclellan Gym.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.