When All-American Hudson Taylor pinned his York opponent in just 39 seconds, it summed up the leisurely afternoon the entire Terrapin wrestling team had in its season-opening dual meet at the Comcast Pavilion.
The No. 6 Terps spent most of both of their team matches against Drexel and York in cruise control. Just two Terps lost in the team’s 35-6 victory against Drexel, and the team earned their first shutout in coach Kerry McCoy’s two-year tenure with a 57-0 dismantling of York that took less than 45 minutes.
Jon Kohler lost his first match at 149 pounds, heavyweight Pat Gilmore lost a close battle in overtime, but otherwise the Dragons and Spartans looked overwhelmed in every match.
Against York, the Terps won nine of their 10 matches by fall or technical fall, and against Drexel only Kyle John at 157 pounds failed to record at least a major decision.
“As a team we wrestled really well, I was happy,” Taylor said. “Obviously, we made some mistakes and we need to fix those, but nothing that we won’t be able to focus on and correct in preparation for our upcoming competition.”
The Terps were without former ACC champ Brian Letters, who McCoy said may be forced to redshirt this season because of injury. But John filled in well, winning the most exciting match of the afternoon when he came back from a four-point deficit entering the third period to earn the 9-8 win against Drexel.
Letters’ injury may not have mattered against this weekend’s inferior competition, but losing someone with his experience could pose a problem as the schedule gets tougher. John spent some of last season in the starting lineup, but is still inexperienced, as evidenced by his slow start. McCoy praised John’s work ethic, saying he “has a gas tank with about 10 million gallons.”
But John can ill-afford to get off to a slow start in two weeks when the Terps travel to wrestle No. 4 Cornell. He isn’t alone.
Before the season, McCoy voiced his concern about how Kohler would perform. While Gilmore is a seasoned wrestler who McCoy says was probably undone by nerves, Kohler was coming off a redshirt season and is moving up a weight class. McCoy’s worries were confirmed on Saturday as Kohler struggled to score points in his first match.
“He went out hard in that first period and attacked, but his opponent had real good counter offense,” McCoy said. “Learning to manage your wrestling is something we stress as a team. If he had scored a takedown in the first period he might have won that match.”
The Terps were clearly the best this weekend, but they will not have nearly as much room for error against the Big Red on Nov. 20. Some of the Terps will be facing All-Americans, and the rest will see vastly improved competition. But McCoy said the team just needs to focus on their own preparation.
“A victory would be huge for our program,” McCoy said. “We will do some scouting, but we will continue to focus on our own areas of improvement and getting stronger. We might tweak and fine-tune our approach, but we aren’t going to change anything.”
lemaire@umdbk.com
