The Blue Devils gained valuable experience and exhibited signs of improvement against grapplers from the North Carolina area at the Carolina Open Saturday.
Unlike the ACC dual meets that Duke will compete in later this season, this meet was not a team competition. Since each wrestler had to pay his own entry fee because of the unattached format, the focus was the wrestlers' individual performances.
"Today was not about the team as a whole but about each individual," head coach Clar Anderson said. "Today was mostly about getting better and seeing how well they could do."
Even though the Blue Devils were unable to take first place in any of the weight classes, two wrestlers finished as runners-up.
Against Phil Bliss from Belmont Abbey, 165-pound sophomore Aaron Glover lost, 7-5, in the finals. Anderson said he was most impressed when Glover pinned last year's ACC Champion Garret Atkinson from North Carolina in the semifinals. He said that Glover was down but used a maneuver they had worked on in practice to defeat Atkinson.
Coming off a fifth-place finish at the Keystone Classic a week ago, 197-pound sophomore Dan Tulley lost to 15th-ranked Steve Borja from Virginia Tech, 3-1, in the championship match.
Since the Blue Devils will be without a few of their upperclassmen until next semester, the freshmen grapplers received most of the attention Saturday. Anderson said that a great benefit of this tournament was that the freshmen, who are still adjusting to the college level and the stronger wrestlers, had the opportunity to develop in an open format.
In the heavyweight class, freshman Wade Van Sickle, who finished second two weeks ago at the UNC Pembroke Open, lost in the quarterfinals to Israel Silva from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 6-4. And freshman Mike Tunick lost to Tar Heel Daniel Goetter, 7-4.
After watching them Saturday, Anderson said he believed that his two heavyweight freshmen were showing signs of making the transition from the high school to the college level.
"We wrestled very well today," Anderson said. "I saw a lot of improvement out of my freshmen and a lot of improvement across the floor."
Even though the Carolina Open was not a team competition, the Duke wrestlers competed against many opponents they will see later on in the season. Individual grapplers from UNC, Campbell, Virginia Tech, and UNC-Greensboro were at the event. The Tar Heels and the Hokies had the most impressive showings. Individually, UNC took first in the 141-pound weight class and placed second in four others. Virginia Tech placed first in four weight classes, and their only second-place showing was in the 133-pound weight class, in which Hokie freshman Joey Slaton pinned teammate Anton Prater in the championship match.
The Blue Devils will now prepare for next weekend's Las Vegas Open.
"We are outmanned next week," Anderson said. "There will be a lot of ranked national opponents there. Hopefully, they can learn to compete at the national level."
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