Tough weekend awaits wrestling team

This weekend might be one of the toughest yet for the IU wrestling team. \nRecoiling after their first two losses of the season, the Hoosiers are set to take on No. 1 Minnesota tonight followed by North Carolina State on Saturday. Both will take place at the University Gym.\nThe Hoosiers dropped both of their duals last weekend, falling to Illinois and Ohio State to put them at 10-2 for the season and 1-2 in the Big Ten.\nMinnesota is 14-1 on the season and 3-0 in the Big Ten, with several of its team members holding records for winning streaks. Cole Konrad, Dustin Schlatter, and Manuel Rivera are ranked in the top five for the longest winning streaks among active Division I wrestlers. The Gophers most recently defeated Purdue 32-9.\nCoach Duane Goldman is looking forward to the meet, and thinks it will \nbe hard work for the team as a whole \nand for individual players.\n"We look for those individual victories and hope that that adds up to something good," he said. "But we need to focus on those individual match ups and try to improve our seeds for the Big Ten tournament."\nMany of the Hoosiers are going up against highly-ranked opponents. Freshman Matt Coughlin is set to face Schlatter, who is ranked first nationally in 149-pound weight class and has an unbeaten streak of 54 matches. \n"I've got nothing to lose," Coughlin said. "I just got to go out there and wrestle my match and, you know, I'll be coming after him."\nSenior Josh Buuck also has his work cut out of him as he faces top-ranked Konrad in the heavyweight class.\n"He's a big guy. I've wrestled him before. I know that he's very aggressive." Buuck said. "I'm a little bit smaller, a little bit quicker. I just got to try not to let him get his weight on me and go after him the best I can."\nThis weekend is also one of the rare occasions where the team will have back-to-back weigh-ins.\n"It'll be a good challenge for us with Minnesota one day and NC State the next," Goldman said. "It will be something new for our guys so we'll see how it goes."\nAlthough they are facing two opponents this weekend, Goldman is taking one at a time.\n"We aren't even going in against NC State yet," he said. "We still have to go in against Minnesota. We'll see how we come out of Minnesota to see how we go into NC State"