Different roster, but same approach for Cardinals

With six of its seven competitors in this weekend’s NJCAA wrestling tournament being freshmen, it will be a little different when North Idaho College hits the mat in Council Bluffs, Iowa, starting on Friday morning.

That being said, there’s a reason why the school holds the most team titles (14) and individual national champions (54).

They just do it better than everyone else.

NIC will send Thomas Stevenson (149 pounds), Brent Evans (157), Levi Perry (184), Jeremy Merryweather (197), Bryson Beard (133), Trey Meyer (165) and Alex Aguilar (174) to nationals. Of those, only Aguilar is a sophomore.

“You want to get as many back here as possible, and always hope to get more,” said NIC coach Pat Whitcomb, in his 19th season as coach. “They looked good in the workout (Wednesday). We’re going to have some youth, so there’s not too much pressure on them. We’ve been trying to preach to them that it’s another tournament and that they’ve been in bigger tournaments. Right now, we’re healthy and going to get out there and take one match at a time.”

Stevenson, Evans, Perry and Merryweather finished as West District runners-up. Beard, Meyer and Aguilar, each third, advanced via wild-card berths.

“Those guys that finished runner-up won’t see a regional champ until the second round,” Whitcomb said. “They’ll get out there and mix it up, but I think that any one of those guys can get hot and have a good tournament.”

Whitcomb pointed to Iowa Central, Clackamas and Northeastern Oklahoma A&M as contenders for the national title.

“Those three have been getting it done all year long,” Whitcomb said. “Clackamas, we’ve wrestled twice and they’re solid. There has been some teams that have gotten back here and fallen flat. Clackamas has the guys to get them to a title. We’ll make sure our guys are ready from the opening whistle.”

NIC qualified just two wrestlers — including eventual champion Dajour Reece — and finished 17th in 2016. Northeastern Oklahoma won last year’s tournament.

“It’s always an exciting time of year,” Whitcomb said. “It’s that time of year you’re looking forward to. When it comes to the national tournament, we preach to our guys that we do it better than anyone else. That doesn’t happen on accident. We’ll do the same thing we’ve done since the guys from 1974 came back here and got results.”

A link to live results can be found at www.nicathletics.com.