Oshkosh Titans Blog

By: Eli Felts
Date: 12-7-06

It’s been a busy couple of weeks since my first entry. Last week we wrestled UW-Steven’s Point and we competed at the MSOE Invitational. We lost to Point in a dual that was closer than the score indicated. We dropped a lot of close matches, and, as Coach DeRoehn keeps telling us, we are literally a few takedowns away from beating higher-ranked teams like Steven’s Point. We are getting compliments for hanging with the tough teams in the conference, but we aren’t satisfied with that. Our goal isn’t to just let the tough teams know we can hang with them; we want to knock those teams off and make our own reputation as one of those teams that is always at the top of the conference. So, we still have work to do, but we are definitely making progress. At the MSOE Invitational we placed second as a team, behind UW-Platteville. This Saturday we compete in Sheboygan against Lakeland College and MSOE in our last competition before break.
Personally, I have had a frustrating go of it lately. Against Point I bumped up two weights to fill in at 184 and lost 12-0. At the MSOE Invite I went 1-2. I was extremely disappointed with my performance. As a result, I was really looking to get after it this week and work on some of the mistakes I was making over the weekend but I got a skin infection so I have been out of the wrestling room all week. I absolutely hate not being in the room when my teammates are in there.
Right now, we are wrapping up our semester for school(I am writing this as a distraction from my homework). We have finals next week so we will be off of practice and after that most of the team will go home and practice with high school teams over the break. I’ve had a pretty good semester as far as classes go, but it will definitely be a relief to be done with classes for a while and be able to just focus on wrestling (and maybe some ice fishing).

Date: 11/27/06
By: Eli Felts

So far this season has been going well. We’ve been practicing for about two months now. Our team has really come along way this year. We had a solid core of guys coming back from last year and we got a really good freshman class in this year. Our freshmen all have a great work ethic and they are a big reason that our program is starting to turn the corner. We have a full practice room now, which is a nice change from our thin numbers last year. There is a lot more competition in the room, as a lot of the younger guys are pushing the veterans, and it’s really showing with some of our early season results. We won our first conference dual, beating #25 UW-Platteville 26-19, and have had some solid showings in our first two tournaments. We’re starting to make some noise, and if we keep working the way we have been we’re going to keep being successful. It’s an exciting time to be a UW-Oshkosh wrestler!
Personally, I feel like I’ve come along way this season. I came to UW-O for the second half of the season last year. I wrestled 174 mostly, but I felt like last year I was really just knocking rust off and adjusting to college wrestling after being out of the sport for a year and a half. During the off-season, I worked very hard in the weight room and wrestling in preparation for my first full college season. This season, I dropped down to 165. I lost my wrestle off 5-4 to Kevin Luedtke, so I have only been wrestling in tournaments. It’s obviously disappointing to not be in the starting lineup, but I’m making the best of it. Kevin and I push each other very hard in practice and I think that having that competition every day is making both of us better. I feel like I’ve improved more in the first two months of this season, as a backup, than I ever have before.
Right now, we are just returning from Thanksgiving break. We had 4 days off of wrestling, which is by far the longest break we’ve had since wrestling started. I’m feeling very refreshed and I’m ready to get back to the grind! In the next couple weeks we will be competing and wrapping up the fall semester, so it should be a busy and exciting time.