By paboothon October 23, 2012, 12:53 PM | 3 comments
The Hokies wrestling team enters the 2012-2013 season as the #10 ranked team in the country. This year looks very promising for the Hokies if they can stay healthy. Nine out of the team's ten projected starters have started in the past and are ranked in the top 25.
The biggest news so far this year is that Devin Carter, last year's 133 pound wrestler, who was ranked #1 in the country for a few weeks, will take a redshirt. He will use this year grow into his new 141 pound weight class and work on improving as an all around wrestler.
So many things can be said after this weeked. I let all of my thoughts marinate before writing or tweeting anything on our performance. Everyone seems to be taking this loss extremely hard, harder than I have seen us take a loss in a while. This is what I came up with.
While losing a couple football games is far from a tragedy, this speech embodies everything that it means to be a Hokie. We may get knocked down, but we always get back up. Let's not lose sight of who we really are. We Are Virginia Tech and We Will Prevail. That is all.
'Arch Matness,' as it is being called this year, is wrestling's version of the big dance. 33 wrestlers will vie for All-American status and more importantly the title of National Champion from March 15-17 in St. Louis (Scottrade Center). Virginia Tech will send six wrestlers this year, a drop-off from the seven that they sent to Philadelphia last year. However that's a good number of bids despite the injuries to 157 pound senior Jesse Dong, and senior heavyweight David Marone. Both probably would have earned sports in the tournament pushing the number to eight national qualifiers. But, let's not dwell on what might have been, let's talk 2012 Arch Matness.
By paboothon January 20, 2012, 8:37 PM | 1 comment
I am writing in hopes of increasing your wrestling knowledge, so that you no longer have an excuse not to go watch our nationally ranked team wrestle. I will do my best to explain as many of the rules and as much of the scoring as possible. Like any other sport wrestling is very complex and just watching the sport is the best way to pick up on all of this. My goal is to give you a base of which to go off of so that when you do watch the team, you have some sense as to what is going on.
By paboothon January 10, 2012, 9:25 AM | 6 comments
Football season is over, yes that is depressing, but I woke up to very good news this morning. The Hokies have a wrestler ranked #1 in the country at his weight class for the first time since 2002. Devin Carter is the top wrestler in the country at 133 pounds, I'm probably more impressed with this than most of you because I have watched him wrestle from the time he was a freshman in high school.
