184-pound Jimmy Sheptock wrestles during the Red vs. Black scrimmage on Oct. 27, 2013.
Coach Kerry McCoy often shows the Terrapins wrestling team videos of NCAA finals matches and championship coronation ceremonies, hoping to motivate the Terps.
As the regular season nears a close, those championship scenes are becoming more likely realities for 184-pound Jimmy Sheptock, who has maintained the nation’s top ranking for five weeks.
The sixth-year coach recently told Sheptock to start visualizing himself on the podium with his hand raised. If the time comes, McCoy wants the redshirt senior to be mentally prepared.
But before Sheptock can start focusing fully on Oklahoma City, Okla. — the site of the NCAA Championships — he and the Terps will have to get through a challenging task this weekend, as they host N.C. State tomorrow and American on Sunday in their final matches of the season at Comcast Pavilion.
“We’ve seen a lot of people that have an incredible run, they make it to the NCAA finals,” McCoy said. “Then the bright lights, and they get starry-eyed. So for him, it’s [that] we’re going to try to really reinforce with him seeing himself, visualizing him being out there on the platform. So by the time it happens, he’s already mentally been out there 15 times.”
After dropping their first three matches of the new year, the Terps have rebounded, winning two of their past three, the last victory coming in impressive fashion, a 37-7 rout of Duke.
The Wolfpack have posted an impressive 12-5 record but are 0-4 against ranked opponents. No. 6 285-pound Nick Gwiazdowski has been key for the team, dropping just two matches in a dominating campaign.
Gwiazdowski will certainly have his hands full tomorrow night, though, when he goes up against the equally physically imposing No. 8 Spencer Myers.
After falling to Michigan’s Adam Coon, 4-1, on Jan. 5., Myers has reeled off five straight victories, including a technical fall, 16-0 win on Jan. 24 against North Carolina’s Bob Coe and a 10-2 major decision over Duke’s Brendan Walsh last weekend.
Myers said he has wrestled Gwiazdowski twice before — once in high school and once during his redshirt campaign in 2012-13 — and lost both times.
“It’s a whole new ballgame this year,” Myers said. “It’s a different year. We’re both different people. I have to go out there and just wrestle my match. Can’t make excuses or anything … This time I’m 100 percent. [I’m] ready to go.”
Myers won’t be the only Terp competing in a match against a ranked opponent this weekend. The 125-pound Billy Rappo, who upset reigning ACC Freshman of the Year Nathan Kraisser on Jan. 24. against North Carolina, likely will take on the Eagles’ No. 10 125-pound David Terao, who has compiled an impressive 27-7 record. But McCoy said Wednesday that he and Rappo haven’t begun scouting Terao because they’ve been preparing for the match with N.C. State.
“He’s got the ability to beat anybody in the country if he wrestles well,” McCoy said. “[Terao’s] a tough kid. We’ve battled him through the years. Billy’s going to have to be focused and strong getting through this N.C. State match, and then we’ll focus on American.”
McCoy usually doesn’t put much emphasis on rankings, but as the Terps headed home from their 28-10 loss at Michigan on Jan. 5, he sat with Sheptock and talked about the possibility that he might ascend to the nation’s top ranking.
Penn State’s Ed Ruth, the two-time defending national champion, had fallen to Cornell’s Gabe Dean, leaving Sheptock as a likely candidate to earn the ranking.
“There’s a difference — No. 1 and No. 2 or 3,” McCoy said. “What things do we need to do? The same things we’ve been doing along the line, but with the mindset of people are going to wrestle you different, people are going to approach you differently.”
Sheptock said he hasn’t felt any heightened pressure from the ranking, but he has noticed a change in opponents’ strategies.
“It’s much harder to score on guys,” Sheptock said. “They’ll try to just be extra defensive and kind of back away. It’s kind of just being patient and taking the shots that are there.”
Sheptock’s next task is to extend the Terps’ winning streak to three matches with a pair of victories this weekend.
“Every single day, every single second, he thinks he can win every position, thinks he’s the best in the country,” Boley said. “We know he’s the real deal. And he knows [it] too.”
