As the old cliché in sports goes, to be the best a team has to beat the best. The Bison wrestling team takes this idea seriously as they continue to schedule and compete against top wrestling programs across the nation. The team’s success cannot be measured in wins and losses because beating tough teams each week is a tall task, but experience is the reason behind the rigorous schedule. “We used to wrestle like this a lot when we were Division II,” Bison assistant coach Bret Maughan said. “We would wrestle Division I opponents so when we faced our conference it seemed easy.”

This year NDSU has already wrestled four ranked schools in Oregon State (21), Nebraska (14), Cal Poly (19) and Boise State (9). Even though the wrestlers are gaining experience a losing record is never easy to accept. However, head coach Bucky Maughan feels that his team is finally starting to turn the corner. “We have our wrestlers sold on the conditioning aspect of the sport; now we have to make our guys pull the trigger faster,” Bucky Maughan said. The team’s training regime is paying off. After wrestling Cal Poly, in the losing effort, Mustang head coach John Azevedo commented on how NDSU left them breathing heavy and more tired than any other team this year.

The wrestlers are not without their struggles. With 133-pound sophomore Trent Sprenkle redshirting, the Bison have a gap and are forced to forfeit that weight. As of now and the immediate future, there appears no solution to that problem. Bucky Maughan feels that a forfeit will benefit both the team and Sprenkle in the future, as the coaching staff sees potential in him. This semester was supposed to bring new excitement to the wrestling team as a junior college national champion was slated to join the roster. However, the situation fell through and the Bison are moving on. “It’s always a gamble when dealing with junior college wrestlers,” Bucky Maughan said. “He would have helped us out, but we can’t sit here and look at what could have been.”

With their conference wrestling schedule underway, NDSU will take on teams such as the Air Force, Wyoming, Northern Iowa and South Dakota State. Bucky Maughan feels NDSU can compete with any team in the conference, if not the team than wrestlers individually. “Even if we wrestle at our best I don’t know if were there yet to take the conference as a team,” Bucky Maughan said. “We do have a couple of guys we feel can compete to qualify for NCAA tournaments though.”

NDSU will close out its regular season schedule against SDSU in mid-February and is then set to compete in the NCAA West Regional in early March.