149: #8 Brian Stephens (VT) dec. Joey Napoli, 3-2
There’s an old sports cliche that goes something along the lines of, “If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best.”
Or, in the case of the Virginia Tech wrestling team, “If you want to be the champ, you’ve got to beat the champ.” The Hokies will host in-state rival and defending ACC champion Virginia Saturday night in Cassell Coliseum.
The team as a whole seems confident entering this weekend’s match, and with good reason. It has put together a dual meet record of 15-4, with all four of those losses coming against top-25 competition.
“We’ve had UVa’s number,” said head coach Kevin Dresser. “We’ve beat them four out of the five dual meets that this coaching staff has been here.”
While it would be great to beat Virginia at home Saturday evening, the Hokies have their sights set much higher than just a victory over the Cavaliers.
“We want to make that five out of six, but at the same time our focus is at the end of the year and the ACC Championships and the NCAA Championships,” Dresser said.
Tech’s wrestling team is in the middle of the best season in school history, having been ranked in the top 10 for most of the year, and rising as high as No. 3 two weeks ago. The Hokies are trying to maintain that success by establishing a winning attitude.
“After we got second at National Duals and we were ranked in the top 10, and even in the top 5 this year, we have to expect to win now,” said junior Jesse Dong. “Last week, we beat Lehigh, and that was a big win for our team because they just came off beating (No. 1) Cornell, but we need to start expecting to win.”
Dong has been one of the keys to the Hokies’ success this season, and is currently ranked fifth nationally in the 157-pound weight class. He is the defending ACC champ in the 157, and has been named ACC Wrestler of the Week twice in the past three weeks.
He’s also been an important factor in putting Tech “on the map,” so to speak. More importantly, however, is the level of consistency Dresser and his staff have maintained within the program. This one successful season might have seem to come out of nowhere from a fan’s perspective, but that’s not entirely true.
A version of this article appeared in the Feb 4 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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