COURTESY KEVIN MCGILL The club wrestling squad has consistently been a force in the NCWA league.

Club Corner: Wrestling

Yale's wrestling squad consists of eight core members and a number of other wrestlers who compete only sporadically. The team competes in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA), a special league for club teams from all over the country. Yale has had individual NCWA affiliated meets with the University of New Hampshire and Lafayette so far this year, but most matches are tournaments in which about 10 teams or more compete. Yale will compete in 10 to 12 more tournaments before the National Championships, which will be held in Virginia this year. The qualifying round for Nationals is less than two weeks away, on Mon., Feb. 28.

Though only the top wrestlers from each region proceed to Nationals, Yale has a solid team and should send several to the competition. This year, McGill has gone undefeated, and Baker has won the majority of his matches. Other powerhouses include Zach Kaufman, SY '00, and David Farrell, MC '03. Kaufman credits Farrell as "an outstanding player. He's just a phenomenal athlete all around." Baker expects that at least four wrestlers will continue to Nationals, a large number considering the overall size of the team. "We're short on numbers, but individuals are doing really well," he commented. The Elis have a history of shipping a strong contingent of grapplers off to nationals, having sent 10 in 1998 and seven from an injury-plagued team the following spring.

As far as rivalries with other clubs go, each wrestler generally has an individual rival or two, but Baker notes that the team "tries to keep rivalries to a minimum," because that is one less thing to deal with. The club has been self- coached since its part-time coach passed away in December. In spite of the absence of a motivating instructor, however, Yale wrestling seems to have little trouble coming up with victories. Still, the NCWA was formed only a few years ago, so the club wrestling scene is just beginning to shape up. The fact that club wrestling is relatively new means that the competition is only going to get harder. Baker predicts that while Yale will have an edge at Nationals and finish high on the charts, the team will also be facing much more challenging opponents than in previous years.

—Reilly Dibner

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