It’s a new year for the Northwestern wrestling team, including new captains with thoughts of the team.
“We are a young team, full of guys willing to work and put their egos aside and learn from the coaches. It’s a fun group to train with and hang out with outside of the room.” Sophomore, Jake Francksen-Small, team captain said. “We do a good job of motivating each other and supporting each other. Seeing the improvement through the first few weeks of the season everyone is having is encouraging and makes it that much more exciting to keep pushing through each practice and competition.”
“The first two meets set the tone for the season by showing us that we have the talent to win, and win big. But it also shows us that we have to fight for every point and keep improving to turn that talent into results. Nothing is given, regardless of skill,” said coach Dylan Costello.
Coach Luis Santiago states, “I feel excited about the season. We got a lot of young guys in the team. It’s pretty exciting to see what these guys are going to come in at and where they’re going to be by the time they get out of here in four years.” He continued, “We have room to grow, so I mean we have a lot of things we have to fix technically, but a lot of these guys are open to suggestions. They take criticism really well and they’re hungry to learn. We’re excited about it.”
In Buena Vista, the team was thought to be under competing. Northwestern came out a little flat and took it to them in those first few matches. For most of the matches, NW was controlling the pace and were doing pretty well in ties and attacking. There was just a few exchanges that they lost in the meet that really made the difference in the match up. NW ended up coming up a little short, closing out at 174, 184 and 197 to win the meet. Overall, it was good to finish on a good note. The meet score was 28-11, with a Raider win for the first meet of the season.
The Raiders began GPAC meets on Nov. 17 at Dakota Wesleyan, and will compete on Saturday, Nov. 20 at home against the Jamestown Jimmies at 10 a.m. 
