Fresh off their 14th national championship, the North Idaho College wrestling team looks to repeat as national champions this year.
Even though the Cardinals lost key members to its national championship team, a national title is the primary goal every season at NIC.
“It’s our goal by the end of the year that we’re going to get in there and we’re going to compete for that regional/national title,” said head coach Pat Whitcomb, who has brought four national championships to NIC as head coach.
One of the returners from last year’s title run is V.J. Giulio (197), who finished third at nationals.
“We have a great recruiting class, absolutely great recruiting class,” Giulio said. “We have a lot of tough kids that are going to be able to fill in those spots.”
Even with talented freshmen, losing All-Americans from last year’s team like Ryan Zumwalt and Jarrett Morrill, who placed second and third at nationals, won’t make this season easier.
“They were all great guys,” Giulio said. “No doubt. It’s not like it’s going to be easy. It’s definitely going to be a harder road than it was last year because we did lose quite a bit of talent. The guys that we do have I feel confident with.”
Whitcomb has been impressed with freshmen like Steven Hopkins (125), Terrance McKinney (141) and Taylor Kornoely (285).
With a good-sized freshman class entering the program, Giulio hopes to help lead the team through his actions.
“I always believe in the concept that you lead by example, so I just try to go out there and handle my business and hopefully they follow suit,” Giulio said.
Giulio said he and his team still talk about their national championship last season.
“We definitely talk about it because individually we didn’t reach our goals,” he said. “We all wanted to be national champs individually. We won a national title without one national champion individual, which is pretty crazy.”
Giulio contributed a lot of points at the national tournament by pinning five of his opponents, giving his team a vital points boost.
NIC wrestled at Christianson Gymnasium Friday night in front of its home crowd for the first time since its title run. The Cardinals held their Red and Gray matches last Wednesday at Mead High School in Spokane and then again Friday at NIC.
The Red and Gray matches are matches between NIC’s top two wrestlers of each weight class. The winning wrestler from each weight class on Wednesday and Friday has a good chance of making the starting lineup. If the wrestlers split their matches at Mead and NIC, they wrestle again before the NIC alumni match Saturday night to break the tie.
The Cardinals open their regular season at home against the University of Great Falls Friday at 7 and then dual with Montana State Northern Saturday at noon.
“We can’t really look past next weekend because Great Falls beat us last year,” Whitcomb said. “That was our only loss. They’re going to be tough. Northern Montana is going to be the tougher of the two teams I think. They were third in the nation. They have everyone back, so we’ll get a good test right out of the shoot and then make some adjustments.”
