Cardinal wrestling will begin its 2007-2008 campaign on Saturday at the Doug Parker Invitational tournament, hosted by Springfield College. In last year’s event, the Cardinals executed a seventh place finish in a field of 17 and are looking to turn some heads this time around.
Wesleyan will travel to Springfield without its two-time New England Champion Dan deLalla ’07 at the 157-pound class, but the Cardinals have some younger wrestlers who are ready to fill both the shoes and head gear of their predecessors.
Zach Rolfe ’10 was poised to wrestle at 157 pounds a year ago, but because deLalla held the 157 spot, Rolfe was forced to wrestle at 165. He had an impressive year, however, moving up a weight class and earning fifth place honors at 165.
Another large gap was left in the heavyweight class with the departure of Steve Campbell ’06, who finished his career at Wesleyan last year. Dan Conroy ’11 will fill that gap, wrestling the 285-pound weight class.
“There’s a lot of youth on the team, but a lot of strong youth,” said Dan Bloom ’10. “There’s a lot of strong freshmen and sophomores on the team.”
The team will look to build off its recent success coming into the weekend’s competition. Six wrestlers enter this season with all-New England places from past seasons, including team captain Josh Wildes ’08. Wildes has produced two all-New England seasons in his career and took home third place last year at 133 pounds. Bloom finished out a stellar freshman campaign by seizing second place at 125 pounds.
Don Torrenti ’08 and Mike Lima ’08 are two returnees who have picked up all-New England places in the past. Along with the team’s other decorated and experienced wrestlers on the team, they will welcome a number of talented freshmen to the squad this year.
The team also has the added bonus of having great depth at each weight class, due to the large number and high caliber of returning wrestlers, matched with the strength of the incoming freshmen. The eight new wrestlers joining Wesleyan’s ranks are also familiar with success, a strong majority of them garnering state qualifying and place-taking experience prior to coming to Wesleyan.
“[The team’s talent] is creating a more competitive environment in the wrestling room,” Bloom said.
The team is confident that the ongoing competitions at each weight class will only improve the team’s level of performance. This stiff competition will only benefit the Cards, who will gain valuable experience competing with their teammates every day at practice, giving the team plenty of reasons to be optimistic entering this weekend’s tournament.
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