SoCon standingsConf. AllUNCG 3-0 5-7Citadel 3-1 7-9UTC 0-0 6-9VMI 0-1 3-6App. St. 0-2 6-8-1Davidson 0-2 4-7
This is a big day for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga wrestling team.
The Mocs will be competing in Maclellan Gym for the first time since Nov. 14, when they beat Liberty and Cumberland. This will be their first Southern Conference meet of the season, as they host The Citadel at 2 p.m.
And UTC coach Heath Eslinger will be as close as he has been to having the lineup he anticipated before the season.
Bucky Johnson, a member of last year’s all-conference team at 125 pounds a year ago, will be weighing in for the first time this season after battling back from offseason knee surgery. He’s expected to weigh in at 133 pounds.
Team captain Cody Cleveland (141) will be wrestling his first match since pulling a hamstring in the Tournament of Champions at Reno, Nev., on Dec. 19.
“I’ve been riding a bike for a month so I’m really excited,” said Cleveland, who was granted a sixth season of eligibility after wrestling just a couple of matches last year before suffering a knee injury. “Whenever you get hurt you look at all the negatives, but all of that will be behind me when I’m wrestling in the nationals in Philadelphia.”
Eslinger also expects to have Niko Brown back at 197 pounds. Brown, second in wins for the Mocs with 14, has missed a handful of matches with a rib injury.
While UTC is just beginning its trip through the SoCon, this will be the final league match for the Bulldogs, who are 3-1 and coming off a 27-13 win Friday at VMI. They also have wins over Appalachian State and Davidson and their loss was 22-14 to UNC Greensboro, the coaches’ preseason pick to win the conference title.
The SoCon regular-season championship has belonged to UTC for the past six years. The Mocs also are riding a 30-meet league win streak. Their last league loss was at The Citadel (27-13) on Feb. 14, 2004.
“Winning 30 straight conference matches is a pretty big deal to us,” Cleveland said. “I think we’re confident, and if we mess it up it will be because we didn’t wrestle well.”
Dan Waddell is a former conference champion who has moved from 157 pounds to 165 for UTC, and he’ll have the day’s toughest challenge in Turotgtokh Luvsandor, who’s ranked eighth nationally with a 30-6 record. Waddell, from Baylor School, also is mindful of the streak.
“I have a huge match because the guy is ranked so high,” he said. “But I don’t want to be part of a team that caused us to lose the streak. This is a huge match because it opens the conference part of our schedule and it represents an opportunity to set the tone for the rest of the season.”
Luvsandor (4-0), 174-pound J.C. Oddo (4-0) and 184-pound Justin Sparrow (3-0) are undefeated in SoCon matches for the Bulldogs. Oddo will meet Brandon Wright and Sparrow will face Jason McCroskey. A fourth-year junior, McCroskey (18-7) leads UTC with 18 wins and has been ranked among the nation’s top 20 184-pounders much of the season.
The rest of the Mocs’ lineup is expected to include Prescott Garner at 125, Johnson or Adam Wilson at 133, Alex Hudson or defending SoCon champion Dean Pavlou at 149, Josh Condon at 157 and Matt Lettner at 285.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765.