Wrestlers open season with intrasquad scrimmage at Assembly Hall

With the season rapidly approaching, many Hoosier wrestlers said they have high hopes of landing a spot in next spring’s NCAA tournament.

First though, they must clinch a spot on their own team.

“Pretty much all of our classes are pretty open,” IU wrestling coach Duane Goldman said. “We have some favorites. We have some NCAA qualifiers back that should feel as if they have ownership to their weight, but we’ll probably have a wrestle-off at virtually every weight with some decent guys — some young guys coming up and some guys looking to make the starting lineup for the first time.”

There will be a new name at 125 pounds for the Hoosiers where, for the first time in five years, former national champion Angel Escobedo will not be taking the mat.

The struggle to replace him appears to be a three-man race between redshirt freshman Justin Brooks and true freshmen Zach Zimmer and Joe Duca.

Brooks and Zimmer will compete against each other in today’s intrasquad scrimmage at 7 p.m. in Assembly Hall.

“(I have been) doing a lot of work outside the room and not letting a whole lot of people know about it, not letting other guys know that I‘m trying to get a step ahead of them,” Brooks said. “I think I’m capable of becoming an All-American.”

While the outcome might factor into who starts for dual matches, Goldman said he chooses his lineups based primarily on real match results as opposed to wrestle-offs.

“The way we conduct our wrestle-offs, honestly, they don’t determine our starting lineup,” Goldman said. “Our wrestle-offs are basically just a match to establish a little bit of a pecking order and get them in a competitive mode. We really gauge our lineup by how they do in actual competition. The final lineup is not going to be determined in the intrasquad by any means.”

More important in determining the dual lineup will be early-season tournaments where the Hoosiers can enter their entire team to better compare one wrestler to another through common opponents or matchups with their teammates.

“Typically by the time you go through all of those things, it gets to be pretty clear-cut,” Goldman said. “When we start getting into our dual meets, you want to know what your lineup is going to be, so you can put your best guys out there.”

Sophomore Geno Capezio said he hopes to be among that group. He began last season at 133 pounds before moving up to 141 pounds for the Big Ten tournament.

“There’s tough guys at my weight,” Capezio said. “I got a little taste of what it is like to start and feel like I got an advantage over these guys. I want to be the starter at this weight. Once you get to be in the big tournament, you want to be there again. I didn’t do very well last year, so I feel like I’ve got some unfinished business.”

Capezio is competing with senior Alex Warren and freshmen Mitchell Richey and Ryan Niemann for the starting spot at 141 pounds this season. Capezio will wrestle Richey in the scrimmage.

“I feel like I’m always in good condition, and I work hard to get better at some of my skills,” Capezio said. “I stayed here all summer to try to work on that, to make sure this year I’m more prepared. I want to work to get that qualifying spot for nationals. It’s a tough road. You’ve got to beat a lot of people.”

Wrestlers will get a three-pound allowance for the scrimmage tonight, as many are still working their way down to their weights for the season. There will be one match at each weight. Preliminary matches were conducted over the past week to determine the two wrestlers in each weight for tonight.

“We put everyone in the wrestle-off situation,” Goldman said. “Even if they win, it’s not really a determination that they’ll be our guy. We’ll go through some of those early-season tournaments and see how they do in actual competition and see how they do against guys on the national level and make the decision there.”