Oregon wrestling heads to Bakersfield, Calif. for the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament Saturday and Sunday, hoping to capitalize on momentum from the recent rout of Portland State and wrestle well enough to secure several spots in next month’s national championship.
The top three finishers in each weight class will advance, in addition to eight wild-card selections.
Oregon has several wrestlers who could qualify, and a few that are expected to. Senior Justin Pearch goes in to the tournament ranked second in the conference at 141 pounds, Ryan Dunn and Joey Lucas rank fourth at 125 and 133 pounds, respectively, and senior Chris Dearmon ranks fifth at heavyweight.
Wrestling practice this week has been lighter physically than usual in a concentrated effort by the coaching staff to let bodies recover from the rigors of the dual-meet season.
“Right now as coaches what we’re trying to do is freshen our guys up physically,” coach Chuck Kearney said. “Hopefully physically freshening them up will excite them mentally and intellectually so that when they hit the tournament they wrestle with high energy.”
Along with the lessening of the physical rigors of practice, the coaching staff is simplifying techniques and refraining from employing new ones in their wrestlers’ strategies.
“At this point it’s just, go out there and wrestle,” Kearney said. “To use a sports analogy, we’re at a point now where we’ve got a tee shot and we want to get over it and just hit the ball without thinking about hands, hips, slice, or pull.”
If Oregon’s young wrestlers can do that, Kearney sees the potential for a successful weekend.
“As coaches who go back and study the film, we can see how close this group is,” Kearney said. “Hopefully this weekend they can go in there and let their hair down, get after some people and surprise themselves.”
And while Kearney did describe the tournament as the team’s “final exam,” the results, positive or negative, will not define this team’s season. The success of this season is defined by how far this group has come and the way they have dealt with the adversity they faced from injuries, relocation of their practice facility, and the failures that are inherent to the learning process of a young team.
“When everything is going well it’s easy to do a good job,” Kearney said. “A lot of times when you’ve hit the amount of adversity that this team has hit, it’s easy to say ‘next year is going to be a lot better” and all of a sudden the focus shifts. These guys have continued to come back and continued to pick themselves up again. I’ve never felt like this team has given up hope.”
One wrestler who has dealt with a healthy dose of adversity this season is 174-pound freshman Ronnie Lee, who has rehabilitated a broken leg in a little more than a month to wrestle in the tournament. The break is not in a “weight-bearing” position on the bone and the team’s doctors are therefore allowing Lee to gauge the pain level and his ability to wrestle on it. Kearney said that no amount of pain would keep Lee from wrestling in the tournament.
“If we told Ronnie he couldn’t wrestle this weekend we’d probably be in for a pretty good scrap,” he said. “That speaks volumes about the kind of kid he is. In life, you meet people who are your friends and those that are ‘foxhole buddies’ and if I ever got pinned down in a foxhole I’d want Ronnie in there next to me because he’s a fighter.”
Lee and Ducks head to Pac-10s
Daily Emerald
February 23, 2007
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