The North Idaho College wrestling team took on former NIC wrestlers in the annual NIC Alumni Match Oct. 20 at Christianson Gymnasium with the Alumni winning 44-12.
The Alumni took a 6-0 lead before the event had started after NIC head athletic trainer Randy Boswell ran onto the mat and was declared the first winner because NIC head coach and announcer for the event, Pat Whitcomb, jokingly claimed that none of the NIC wrestlers could defeat him.
Redshirt sophomore Brock Banta responded for the current NIC team by defeating a member of last season’s team Joaquin Calderon with a takedown in the final seconds of the third period. Freshman Zach Mahaney tied the score at six in the following match with a 7-5 win in overtime over Mike Reyes, who last wrestled for NIC in 2000.
The Alumni would win eight out of the next 10 matches including pins by current NIC assistant wrestling coach and 2003 National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) national champion Keri Stanley, 2002 NIC wrestler Mike Bundy and current NIC Booster Club President Jon Parson, who last wrestled for NIC in 1993.
“I wrestle him (Jake Lindell) almost every day or every other day, so I know what he’s going to do, and he knows what I’m going to do,” Stanley said.
First year NIC assistant wrestling coach and two-time NJCAA national champion Jamelle Jones also won his match for the Alumni against redshirt freshman Curtis Berger 6-5.
The matches lasted three minutes as opposed to the usual seven minutes in duals, and there were no weigh-ins.
“If there was a weigh-in and it was a full length match, I think the score definitely would have been different,” sophomore All-American wrestler Jarrett Morrill said. “But doing three-minute matches and no weigh-ins, it kind of tips the scale in favor of the Alumni a little bit.”
Before the Alumni Match, freshman Kit Major and Morrill squared off to determine which wrestler was going to fill the 141-pound starting position for NIC. Morrill won the match 6-2.
Morrill beat Major Oct. 17 at Mead High School in Spokane, but Major answered by defeating the All-American the next night at NIC in the closing seconds of the match. Since they beat each other once a piece, they had to wrestle again to break the tie.
“I wanted to wrestle more on my feet this time around and so that’s what I did,” Morrill said. “I knew I could beat him but it was just a matter of I needed to wrestle smart, not give him a chance to pull it out in the end like he did last time.”
The current Cardinals team has six returning All-Americans, but one of them, Ryan Zumwalt at the 157-pound spot, tore his LCL after the National Tournament last season. Whitcomb said he might get cleared to wrestle after Christmas, but the timetable for his return is uncertain.
Whitcomb also said that this season’s squad probably has more experience than any other team he has coached at NIC and that his expectations are high.
“I would say we feel good about making a run at that 14th national title,” Whitcomb said. “But it all starts next weekend.”
NIC will open its season in Havre, Mont., Friday to face Montana State Northern and then they will take on the University of Great Falls in Great Falls, Mont., Saturday.
Morrill also is setting his sights on the NJCAA national title.
“I don’t think there’s any reason we shouldn’t win nationals,” Morrill said. “We just got to put in the work, get better between now and nationals, but I don’t think top to bottom anybody’s as solid as we are.”
