Wrestling coach Kerry McCoy looks on during a match in 2012.
The Terrapins wrestling team returned from its opening Big Ten road trip unsatisfied with its results.
In two duals with then-No. 19 Wisconsin on Nov. 14 and then-No. 7 Nebraska two days later, the Terps were outscored 70-15 and lost five matches by fall.
Despite a pair of disappointing outcomes, coach Kerry McCoy said the shaky performance in the first two Big Ten matches showed his team the amount of work required to compete in the nation’s premier wrestling conference.
And with almost three weeks between duals — the Terps travel to wrestle Pittsburgh on Dec. 5 — the veteran coach said the wrestlers adopted a newfound work ethic in the practice room and in open competition.
“Once you go through and you have a couple of competitions, then it’s a little easier to say, ‘Hey, this is what we were talking about,’” McCoy said. “It’s kind of like when you’re dealing with little kids and you say, ‘Don’t touch the stove; it’s hot,’ and they don’t believe it and burn themselves. Sometimes, that’s what happens.”
After opening the year with the Red & Black Wrestle-Offs on Oct. 26, the Terps didn’t have much time to learn from their mistakes. They competed in duals for three straight weekends.
The team began the season with the Terrapin Duals on Nov. 2, in which they dominated lower-level competition — Kutztown and Alderson Broaddus are Division II and Johns Hopkins is Division III. On Nov. 9, the team suffered a close loss to George Mason — a program the Terps traditionally beat — before grappling against the Badgers and Cornhuskers the following weekend.
McCoy said the schedule season was crafted with a purpose.
“It was by design to get that competition under your belt and understand that if we had our full lineup and 100 percent — everyone’s healthy — at the beginning of the season, I think the results would be a little bit different,” McCoy said.
Against the Patriots, the Terps wrestled without four starters in the lighter weight classes. Moreover, 125-pound Josh Polacek and 149-pound Ben Dorsay missed the team’s next match with Wisconsin.
But after a host of injuries, the Terps will have their full complement of wrestlers against Pittsburgh. Polacek returned to the mat against Nebraska, and Dorsay, who had been sidelined with a concussion since the Terrapin duals, will return to the startling lineup for Friday’s match.
The seventh-year coach also used the team’s downtime to send wrestlers to compete in open competition. Hoping to solidify the lineup, McCoy sent 141-pound Shyheim Brown, 149-pound Frank Goodwin and heavyweights Sean Twigg and Ryan Kail to the TCNJ Open on Nov. 22.
The tournament provided mixed results. Goodwin, who did not make weight, had to wrestle up a weight class, but Brown still represented the Terps by winning the title. And at 285 pounds, Twigg was one victory away from placing, while Kail suffered a concussion in his first-round bout.
“The more wrestling experience, the better,” Brown said. “Especially going into the winter season, like December and January. That’s when it gets really tough.”
The Terps will continue to move through an unforgiving schedule as they still have duals with five top-10 squads, including No. 1 Iowa, No. 2 Minnesota and No. 4 Penn State.
But with an extended period of time to ponder what went wrong during the past two defeats, the Terps believe they’ve fixed their miscues and are set to see how they fare in upcoming duals.
“We’ve been grinding a lot more in the room,” 174-pound Josh Snook said. “We’ve prepared well, I think we’re going to have a good showing up against Pitt, so I’m excited for that.”
