Boise State Athletics
BRONCO WRESTLING HEADS TO COWBOY OPEN
11/13/2008 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
BOISE, Idaho -- The Boise State wrestling team will travel to the University of Wyoming’s Cowboy Open Saturday (Nov. 15) for its first tournament of the 2008-09 season. The Broncos enter the tournament 3-0 and ranked No. 14 in the nation (USA Today/InterMat/NWCA) after three road wins at the start of November to open the season.
“I think it just gives us some matches,” Randall said. “I think we get in better shape because of the high altitude. It’s kind of a shock to our wrestlers to see what kind of shape they are really in. So it’s kind of a conditioning wake-up call.”
Randall plans on using tournaments like the Cowboy Open to help solidify the Broncos’ starting line up for the season. Despite having eight wrestlers currently ranked in the USA Today/InterMat/NWCA top 20 for their respective weight class, Randall says at this point his starting rotation is far from set.
“That’s one reason why we go to this tournament,” Randall said. “Most schools have wrestle-offs. I’m not a firm believer in wrestle-offs. I like to see how they do in competition. Normally what we do is, if [two of our wrestlers] meet in the tournament, we count that as a wrestle-off.”
Andrew Hochstrasser (133) and Brent Chriswell (197) are both currently ranked 9th in their respective weight classes. Rounding out the group is Adam Hall who is ranked 10th at 157-pounds, while Cory Fish (141) and Tyler Sherfey (165) are both currently ranked 11th and senior Nick Smith ranks 18th at 285-pounds.
The Broncos expect a very competitive tournament this weekend with Pac-10 conference opponent Stanford, the
“Last year was the year that we did really well and we’ve got our whole team back,” Randall said. “So hopefully we’ll go down there and get quite a few guys in the finals and maybe even have two guys in the finals at one weight.”
