Then-redshirt sophomore Blake Stauffer grapples with Stanford reshirt freshman Zach Nevills. Stauffer won on a 9-2 decision at a home meet on Feb. 3. Stauffer leads ASU's wrestling team as they continue the 2014-15 season. (Benjamin Margiott/The State Press)The ASU wresting team has kicked off the second half in similar fashion to the rest of the year with mostly up and down performances. The rest of the year won’t be any easier, but the team is confident in its abilities heading into 2015.
Redshirt junior Blake Stauffer, ranked sixth at 184 pounds by InterMatWrestle.com, has been the most consistent wrestler on the team this season. And while he continues his journey in search of a national championship, he is also confident in his team's ability to get where it wants to be.
“Ultimately, it’s just learning from the losses and continuing to improve,” Stauffer said. “Even learning from the wins, too. We just have to keep getting better every day.”
Stauffer is 14-1 this season overall and is coming off a decision victory over West Virginia’s Jakob Scheffel. Despite his dominance of late there are still things that he knows he needs to work on.
“I feel I’ve had a pretty good season so far, but I still think there’s a lot of things I can improve on,” Stauffer said. “Ultimately I have a goal to be a national champion, and that comes with a lot of responsibility and there are a lot of things I still have to get better at.”
Redshirt freshman Christian Pagdilao (5-1 overall) will be looking to improve as well coming off a technical fall victory over West Virginia’s Louis Colonna. He also sees the team starting to get into a bit of a rhythm after the coaches settle in on the starters.
That kind of consistency of knowing who will be wrestling at every meet should help the team, as Pagdilao, who is in his first year at ASU after transferring from Michigan State, is already well aware.
“I feel like we’re improving as a team to be honest, I know we lost to a couple of tough teams this weekend but as a team I feel like we’re building,” Pagdilao said. “I feel like the coaches are starting to really hone in on who the starters are and I think we’re only going to get better from here.”
With only six more meets until the Pac-12 Championships in Corvallis, Oregon, in March, improvements will have to come fairly quickly.
“We’re kind of just waiting to get everyone back together, and we have to have a sense of urgency about it,” said sophomore Oliver Pierce (5-2 overall). “We’ve definitely had some ups and downs, but we’ve had some bright spots with guys scrapping. At some point we just have to come together as a team and we have to put it together because you only have so much time to do so.”
The long-term goal for the team is obviously to win as many meets as possible and perform well in the conference, but having shorter-term goals is important as well.
Redshirt senior Chace Eskam, who is often the anchor of the team at heavyweight, seems to be focused more on those types of short-term goals on the mat.
“I think as a team you just need to improve on not giving up bonus points in situations,” Eskam said. “Not giving up big mistakes and being a little more stingy with points.”
Reach the reporter at wslane@asu.edu or follow him @bill_slane on Twitter
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