Northwestern’s 2023-2024 wrestling season is starting out strong with two wrestlers ranked in the country and seven ranked in the conference.
Kaleb Lind and Luke Jenness hold the 20th and 12th positions in the country in their respective weight classes while they are also the top two ranked in the conference. The rest of the seven are Sean Heeney, Johnny Burnette, Braden Sehr, Jake Franken-small and Pepe Sanchez.
“I think we are better than having seven ranked, we should have two more guys up there. I believe we have a lot of potential to have more than that. They have worked hard for those positions. They have us fifth in the conference, but we could be one of the top two,” said Coach Dahl. One of Dahl’s goals outside of winning is to teach his team how to be men of character. Abstaining from temptations, accepting responsibility and leading courageously are the pillars Dahl leads by.
“When we reject passivity and do what we should, good things will start to happen. We need to own up to our actions and start to be disciplined. We want our team to be men of character, to learn how to be a great friend, husband, father… Us coaches want to teach more than wrestling but lifelong values for these men to live by,” Dahl said. Dahl is intentional with each athlete as at the beginning of each season he asks his wrestlers why they are wrestling.
“There is something about wrestling that they love so when they are struggling, they can look back on the good days and fight for that. Life can be hard, there is times of plenty and times of wanting and you must persevere. You must remind them of what they want and it will be hard. Take them where they are to where they want to be,” said Dahl. Dahl loves this team and it is evident through his coaching and the performance through the wrestlers.
