(Photo: Travis David V Whittaker/WCSN)
On Friday, February 22 the Sun Devils will host their last match before heading into the Pac-12 Championships.
Cal Poly will be traveling to Tempe to finish off the regular season. ASU is coming off a win from the previous weekend against CSU Bakersfield.
The Devils won the match against CSU Bakersfield 24-12 to break their four dual-meet losing streak.
After a tough schedule, three top five teams featuring Penn State, Ohio State, and Missouri. The team has a 5-10 record. However, their team loses have not hurt their spirits.
In anticipation to facing Cal Poly, Redshirt senior, Austyn Harris said, “we all know the areas we need to work on and we’ve been able to address them, So I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people.”
This will be the last time in regular season that Harris will be wrestling for ASU. The team has had a difficult schedule this season and Harris recognized this by saying “the hardest schedule this year that we’ve ever had since I’ve been here, I think that can be kind of hard because we are going up against really hard teams, but it definitely gives us more confidence later in the season knowing that we’ve faced the best and we can wrestle with anybody.”
Jacen Petersen shares Harris attitude. Petersen said, “don’t let a loss affect you as a wrestler too much.”
The 165-pounder stated that he is working on his offense and single leg in preparation for the upcoming match. “I need to get working offensively a little bit more than I usually do. I start out slow a lot of the times then I kind of have to work my way back into matches,” said Petersen.
Zahid Valencia will be returning to the mat for the last regular season dual. He is coming off a loss from Mizzou’s Daniel Lewis. Head coach Zeke Jones was asked about what Valencia is doing to prepare and he said, “prepare for the NCAA tournament, this dual meet will take care of itself. Prepare for this dual and you’re probably not getting ready for the NCAAs, because I know he won’t be tested.”
Another wrestler returning to the mat will be All-American, Ryan Millhof. This will be his first time back in the lineup since he suffered a concussion at the Midland Championship.
Even though the team has one more regular season dual they are looking ahead and preparing for the post season. Jones took a look back at season leading up to this dual and said, “Confidence always grows when you are winning, it’s a long season we talk about not getting too high with the highs and too low with the lows, stay consistent, understand everything as a process and learning, and getting better.”
“Of course you want to get your hand raised every time as a team and individually, but I do think we are getting better and it’s key that we are getting better faster than everyone else, and I think our strength has gotten better, our conditioning has gotten better, technically we are getting better in some positions, we still got some clean up in other spots though.”
