North Carolina State University Athletics
Wrestling Opens This Weekend at NC State Open
11/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
(Note: NC State begins the 2007-08 wrestling season on Saturday at the NC State Open at Reynolds Coliseum. Wrestling begins at 10 a.m. and should last well into the afternoon. Admission is free.)
In his three seasons as NC State’s head wrestling coach, Carter Jordan has strived to take the program to the heights it enjoyed during its heyday from 1980-93.
During that 14-year span, the Wolfpack finished first in the Atlantic Coast Conference’s regular-season standings seven times, won seven ACC tournament championships, recorded 11 top-20 finishes at the NCAA Championships, averaged 3.5 individual ACC champions per year, and had 22 All-Americans.
The 11-year period from 1994-2004 saw the Pack finish first in the regular season four times and win four ACC Tournament championships while averaging 2.4 individual ACC champions per season. On the national stage, NC State faded from view. Since finishing seventh nationally in 1993, NC State’s highest national finish has been 29th in 1996. Its last All-American was Mike Miller, also in 1996.
Jordan’s three seasons on the job have witnessed a decided upturn in the Wolfpack’s fortunes, highlighted by last season’s runaway victory at the ACC Championships. Five NC State wrestlers won their respective weight classes, and eight made the finals. The Pack had the team championship clinched before the individual championship round began, and the Wolfpack’s final margin of victory 36 points was the largest in 13 years and the largest by NC State since a 38-point blowout in 1981.
“We’re getting closer,” Jordan says. “We’re certainly not where we want to be, but we’re getting closer. Last year was a stepping stone.”
While reasserting its muscle within the conference, NC State still has work to do on the national stage. That is the stepping stone Jordan mentioned. Last season’s 38th-place finish at the NCAA Championships was hardly satisfactory, and the 11-year All-America drought has become especially frustrating to Jordan.
With that in mind, this year’s team will revolve around three All-America hopefuls, each of whom is changing weight classes this season, with postseason results in mind.
Redshirt-junior Ryan Goodman won the ACC championship at 197 pounds each of the last two years and has a two-year record of 44-10 with 10 pins. Goodman will drop to 184 pounds this season. Junior Joe Caramanica, the 2007 ACC champion at 149 pounds, is 43-19 in two seasons at 149, but will drop to 141 in 2007-08. Sophomore Darrion Caldwell, the 2007 ACC Wrestler of the Year and conference champion at 141, had one of the greatest freshman seasons in school history, winning 20 of 26 matches, setting a school record with 10 pins as a freshman, and becoming the first freshman in ACC history to be named conference wrestler of the year. Caldwell will move up a weight in 2007-08, to 149.
“Because of those three key guys in the lineup, we should have the ability to score a lot of points in any national tournament,” Jordan says. “All three of those guys are training very hard, very diligently, right now. We’re very excited to see just what those three can do on a national level this year.”
In dropping a weight, Goodman and Caramanica both figure to gain an edge at the lower weight because of their strength without suffering a corresponding disadvantage in quickness. Caldwell, meanwhile, has simply outgrown 141 pounds and is perfectly suited physically for the move to 149. His move up a weight should be a seamless transition.
With those three changing weights, however, and with junior 157-pounder Kody Hamrah redshirting and five other starters from last year’s team either graduated or transferred, the team enters 2007-08 having to fill several holes in the lineup. The only other returning starter will be redshirt-sophomore Taylor Cummings, who won the ACC championship at 125 pounds a year ago.
How well Jordan can fill out the rest of the lineup will be a test of just how far he has brought the program. During much of the late 1990s and early 2000s, NC State did not have the depth needed to redshirt high-profile recruits. Injuries often meant forfeiting a match. This year, Jordan intends to redshirt most of his top freshmen and still fill holes at six of the 10 spots in the starting lineup. And several spots in the lineup will go three deep.
“This is the first time in a long time that we’ll be in a position to redshirt incoming freshmen,” Jordan says. “That’s going to help those young men in their development as wrestlers.”
In particular, Jordan is redshirting 125-pounder Mike Moreno, 149-pounder Colton Palmer and 174-pounder Jerry Ochoa. Moreno and Ochoa were standouts at Sunnyside High School, a prep powerhouse in Tucson, Ariz. Palmer was a two-time state champion from Durham’s Riverside High School, where he set a national record for victories in a season with a 95-0 mark as a senior and posted a four-year mark of 289-4.
That’s not to say that Jordan won’t start a true freshman. He may start two. Darius Little was a multisport standout at Thomasville High School, and during his high school career he won the state championship in wrestling at 135 pounds in 2007, started at cornerback for a state championship football team, and was all-state in several events in track and field. Little should open the year as the starter at 133, with redshirt-sophomore Ryan Tice providing excellent depth.
“Not a lot of people know about in Darius Little,” Jordan says. “He’s very athletic, and I try to recruit athletes more than wrestlers. The old adage is that you can always make an athlete a wrestler, but you can’t make a wrestler an athlete.”
Caramanica and Caldwell will follow Little in the lineup, leading to a three-way battle at 157 that will have a ripple effect at 165. Redshirt-freshmen Phil Black and Ray Ward both came to NC State a year ago from high school wrestling powerhouses. Black was a standout at Absegami High School in Galloway, N.J., while Ward was a high school teammate of Caramanica’s at Nazareth High School in Nazareth, Pa. Will Gilleland, a state champion and high school All-American as a senior at Bandys High School in Statesville, N.C., will compete with Ward and Black at 157.
The runners-up at 157 will be in consideration for the starting job at 165, along with redshirt-junior Jalil Dozier.
“We basically have four people competing for two spots in the lineup,” Jordan says. “That will make both those classifications contested for us. All four of those guys will see action for us this year. All four of them will help us this year.”
Randy Goodman, Ryan’s older brother, saw action in 12 matches at 174 a year ago and most likely will start there this year, one spot ahead of his brother at 184. Junior Mark Jahad moves up from 184 to take over the starting spot at 197.
That leaves heavyweight as the last seriously contested spot in the lineup, and Jordan has multiple options at his disposal. Caleb Churchwell, a former state runnerup at East Wake High School in Knightdale, N.C., is transferring to NC State after two years at Delaware Valley Community College. He will be eligible following the fall semester. Chris Sutton, a three-time all-state performer at Laney High School in Wilmington, redshirted as a true freshman a year ago. Bobby Isola was a state runnerup in Florida a year ago. As is the case at 157 and 165, the eventual starter will not be the only wrestler who will see action this season.
“Caleb Churchwell is a local kid who transferred in here and will be eligible in the second semester. Chris Sutton’s a kid who is a hard worker, tough, big at 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds. He’s hard to deal with at that size. And Bobby Isola has a chance to be as good as any heavyweight we’ve had, with the exception of Sylvester Terkay, who was very special. Bobby is very athletic and turned down a lot of football scholarships to come here, but again, he’s young and it’s very difficult to compete at this level as a true freshman. All three of those guys are going to help us at heavyweight.”
Jordan will find out about his team quickly. The Pack opens its dual-match season on November 15 at Oklahoma, takes on Michigan State and Purdue two days later in Chapel Hill, battles Iowa a week later in Lakewood, Ohio, then travels to Las Vegas in early December for the always-loaded Cliff Kean Invitational and to Greensboro the week after Christmas for the equally-loaded Southern Scuffle. That’s all before New Year’s Day.
“This schedule will allow our kids to understand how the top competition is,” Jordan says. “We’re wrestling Oklahoma, we’re wrestling Iowa, we’re wrestling Purdue, Michigan State. These are all solid Big Ten and Big Twelve teams that are going to take a lot of kids to the NCAA Tournament. We’re going to wrestle ranked opponents at those two tournaments. This will give us a great barometer, before we get into the meat of our dual-meet schedule in January, as to who the competitors are on our team, who the tough guys are, and who we’re going to put out on the mat to represent us at the end of the year.”
NC State took time to evolve into a championship team a year ago, struggling early in the year before a come-from-behind victory at then-18th-ranked Indiana sent the team on a six-match winning streak to end the regular season. While it’s way too early to compare this team to last year’s championship squad, the two are similar in some respects. In particular, Jordan says, both teams had great character and work ethic to go along with talent.
“This is a great group to coach because of the way they work,” Jordan says. “There’s not a slacker in the room. Everybody in the room has set the bar very high for themselves. We train extremely hard and everone buys into that. The culture of the team has really moved in that direction.”
In his three seasons as NC State’s head wrestling coach, Carter Jordan has strived to take the program to the heights it enjoyed during its heyday from 1980-93.
During that 14-year span, the Wolfpack finished first in the Atlantic Coast Conference’s regular-season standings seven times, won seven ACC tournament championships, recorded 11 top-20 finishes at the NCAA Championships, averaged 3.5 individual ACC champions per year, and had 22 All-Americans.
The 11-year period from 1994-2004 saw the Pack finish first in the regular season four times and win four ACC Tournament championships while averaging 2.4 individual ACC champions per season. On the national stage, NC State faded from view. Since finishing seventh nationally in 1993, NC State’s highest national finish has been 29th in 1996. Its last All-American was Mike Miller, also in 1996.
Jordan’s three seasons on the job have witnessed a decided upturn in the Wolfpack’s fortunes, highlighted by last season’s runaway victory at the ACC Championships. Five NC State wrestlers won their respective weight classes, and eight made the finals. The Pack had the team championship clinched before the individual championship round began, and the Wolfpack’s final margin of victory 36 points was the largest in 13 years and the largest by NC State since a 38-point blowout in 1981.
“We’re getting closer,” Jordan says. “We’re certainly not where we want to be, but we’re getting closer. Last year was a stepping stone.”
While reasserting its muscle within the conference, NC State still has work to do on the national stage. That is the stepping stone Jordan mentioned. Last season’s 38th-place finish at the NCAA Championships was hardly satisfactory, and the 11-year All-America drought has become especially frustrating to Jordan.
With that in mind, this year’s team will revolve around three All-America hopefuls, each of whom is changing weight classes this season, with postseason results in mind.
Redshirt-junior Ryan Goodman won the ACC championship at 197 pounds each of the last two years and has a two-year record of 44-10 with 10 pins. Goodman will drop to 184 pounds this season. Junior Joe Caramanica, the 2007 ACC champion at 149 pounds, is 43-19 in two seasons at 149, but will drop to 141 in 2007-08. Sophomore Darrion Caldwell, the 2007 ACC Wrestler of the Year and conference champion at 141, had one of the greatest freshman seasons in school history, winning 20 of 26 matches, setting a school record with 10 pins as a freshman, and becoming the first freshman in ACC history to be named conference wrestler of the year. Caldwell will move up a weight in 2007-08, to 149.
“Because of those three key guys in the lineup, we should have the ability to score a lot of points in any national tournament,” Jordan says. “All three of those guys are training very hard, very diligently, right now. We’re very excited to see just what those three can do on a national level this year.”
In dropping a weight, Goodman and Caramanica both figure to gain an edge at the lower weight because of their strength without suffering a corresponding disadvantage in quickness. Caldwell, meanwhile, has simply outgrown 141 pounds and is perfectly suited physically for the move to 149. His move up a weight should be a seamless transition.
With those three changing weights, however, and with junior 157-pounder Kody Hamrah redshirting and five other starters from last year’s team either graduated or transferred, the team enters 2007-08 having to fill several holes in the lineup. The only other returning starter will be redshirt-sophomore Taylor Cummings, who won the ACC championship at 125 pounds a year ago.
How well Jordan can fill out the rest of the lineup will be a test of just how far he has brought the program. During much of the late 1990s and early 2000s, NC State did not have the depth needed to redshirt high-profile recruits. Injuries often meant forfeiting a match. This year, Jordan intends to redshirt most of his top freshmen and still fill holes at six of the 10 spots in the starting lineup. And several spots in the lineup will go three deep.
“This is the first time in a long time that we’ll be in a position to redshirt incoming freshmen,” Jordan says. “That’s going to help those young men in their development as wrestlers.”
In particular, Jordan is redshirting 125-pounder Mike Moreno, 149-pounder Colton Palmer and 174-pounder Jerry Ochoa. Moreno and Ochoa were standouts at Sunnyside High School, a prep powerhouse in Tucson, Ariz. Palmer was a two-time state champion from Durham’s Riverside High School, where he set a national record for victories in a season with a 95-0 mark as a senior and posted a four-year mark of 289-4.
That’s not to say that Jordan won’t start a true freshman. He may start two. Darius Little was a multisport standout at Thomasville High School, and during his high school career he won the state championship in wrestling at 135 pounds in 2007, started at cornerback for a state championship football team, and was all-state in several events in track and field. Little should open the year as the starter at 133, with redshirt-sophomore Ryan Tice providing excellent depth.
“Not a lot of people know about in Darius Little,” Jordan says. “He’s very athletic, and I try to recruit athletes more than wrestlers. The old adage is that you can always make an athlete a wrestler, but you can’t make a wrestler an athlete.”
Caramanica and Caldwell will follow Little in the lineup, leading to a three-way battle at 157 that will have a ripple effect at 165. Redshirt-freshmen Phil Black and Ray Ward both came to NC State a year ago from high school wrestling powerhouses. Black was a standout at Absegami High School in Galloway, N.J., while Ward was a high school teammate of Caramanica’s at Nazareth High School in Nazareth, Pa. Will Gilleland, a state champion and high school All-American as a senior at Bandys High School in Statesville, N.C., will compete with Ward and Black at 157.
The runners-up at 157 will be in consideration for the starting job at 165, along with redshirt-junior Jalil Dozier.
“We basically have four people competing for two spots in the lineup,” Jordan says. “That will make both those classifications contested for us. All four of those guys will see action for us this year. All four of them will help us this year.”
Randy Goodman, Ryan’s older brother, saw action in 12 matches at 174 a year ago and most likely will start there this year, one spot ahead of his brother at 184. Junior Mark Jahad moves up from 184 to take over the starting spot at 197.
That leaves heavyweight as the last seriously contested spot in the lineup, and Jordan has multiple options at his disposal. Caleb Churchwell, a former state runnerup at East Wake High School in Knightdale, N.C., is transferring to NC State after two years at Delaware Valley Community College. He will be eligible following the fall semester. Chris Sutton, a three-time all-state performer at Laney High School in Wilmington, redshirted as a true freshman a year ago. Bobby Isola was a state runnerup in Florida a year ago. As is the case at 157 and 165, the eventual starter will not be the only wrestler who will see action this season.
“Caleb Churchwell is a local kid who transferred in here and will be eligible in the second semester. Chris Sutton’s a kid who is a hard worker, tough, big at 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds. He’s hard to deal with at that size. And Bobby Isola has a chance to be as good as any heavyweight we’ve had, with the exception of Sylvester Terkay, who was very special. Bobby is very athletic and turned down a lot of football scholarships to come here, but again, he’s young and it’s very difficult to compete at this level as a true freshman. All three of those guys are going to help us at heavyweight.”
Jordan will find out about his team quickly. The Pack opens its dual-match season on November 15 at Oklahoma, takes on Michigan State and Purdue two days later in Chapel Hill, battles Iowa a week later in Lakewood, Ohio, then travels to Las Vegas in early December for the always-loaded Cliff Kean Invitational and to Greensboro the week after Christmas for the equally-loaded Southern Scuffle. That’s all before New Year’s Day.
“This schedule will allow our kids to understand how the top competition is,” Jordan says. “We’re wrestling Oklahoma, we’re wrestling Iowa, we’re wrestling Purdue, Michigan State. These are all solid Big Ten and Big Twelve teams that are going to take a lot of kids to the NCAA Tournament. We’re going to wrestle ranked opponents at those two tournaments. This will give us a great barometer, before we get into the meat of our dual-meet schedule in January, as to who the competitors are on our team, who the tough guys are, and who we’re going to put out on the mat to represent us at the end of the year.”
NC State took time to evolve into a championship team a year ago, struggling early in the year before a come-from-behind victory at then-18th-ranked Indiana sent the team on a six-match winning streak to end the regular season. While it’s way too early to compare this team to last year’s championship squad, the two are similar in some respects. In particular, Jordan says, both teams had great character and work ethic to go along with talent.
“This is a great group to coach because of the way they work,” Jordan says. “There’s not a slacker in the room. Everybody in the room has set the bar very high for themselves. We train extremely hard and everone buys into that. The culture of the team has really moved in that direction.”
#PackMentality Pop-Ins Podcast: Ep. 147 - VT Preview & Will Denny
Tuesday, January 27
#PackMentality Pop-Ins Podcast: Ep. 146 - Midseason Report for Start of ACC Duals
Wednesday, January 07
#PackMentality Pop-Ins Podcast: Ep. 145 - Transfer Patrick Brophy
Monday, January 05
#PackMentality Pop-Ins Podcast: Ep. 144 - Season Shifts into Second Semester Action
Tuesday, December 16