Senior heavyweight Dom Bradley knew two years ago this year’s Missouri wrestling team would be experienced.
“Part of the reason I took an Olympic redshirt was I knew this team was going to have a lot of juniors and seniors,” Bradley said. “I knew there was going to be a lot of great people on this team.”
This experienced team heads to Des Moines, Iowa, this weekend for the NCAA tournament for their final matches of the season. The team hopes this weekend will be its best weekend of the season.
As Bradley said, the team features mostly juniors and seniors. Missouri fields six seniors, three juniors and one sophomore. The sophomore is 149-pounder Drake Houdashelt, who already has two conference championships under his belt.
“He’s not your average sophomore,” Bradley said. “He’s a two-time conference champion and probably is going to be the first four-time conference champion in school history.”
But the Tigers’ experience is not only limited to their age. Missouri has seen wrestlers from all but two of the teams in the top 10.
“We’ve always had a tough schedule,” coach Brian Smith said. “I think it prepares you for all styles. It prepares you for all situations with crowds. During the season we’ve had the national duals and we’ve wrestled with big crowds here when we wrestled Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Central Michigan.”
Smith believes this type of scheduling benefits the team at the NCAA tournament.
“They know they’ve seen everything and now it’s just going to be a bigger venue with a lot of people out there,” Smith said. “It’s a packed house every session. That shouldn’t faze you, that should be fun.”
Throughout the season, the Tigers have been a top-10 team. One thing that has held the Tigers back from improving their ranking has been injuries. Junior 125-pounder Alan Waters was one injured Tiger, missing nearly a month earlier in the season.
“They’ve been successful all season long,” Smith said. “We really haven’t had bad outings. We’ve had some times where we had injuries and haven’t had guys in the lineup. Other than that we’ve wrestled consistently.”
Another grappler injured this season has been senior 133-pounder Nathan McCormick, who was injured during a match versus Oklahoma State at the National Duals. McCormick says he is healthy now and is ready to have his best performance this weekend.
“The coaches have done a really great job so we don’t plateau during the year and we peak at the end of the year,” McCormick said. “I felt great at the conference tournament and I know I am going to peak.”
For McCormick, Bradley and the rest of the Missouri seniors, this will be their last time on the mat. Bradley says he has begun to prepare for that, but is just worried about the present.
“Coaches said to live in the moment,” Bradley said. “I’m just taking it day by day, step by step. This is the last chance I have to go out there, put on the singlet and represent the state of Missouri. I am going to go out there and take it slow and live in the moment.”
However, Bradley did say there is one time he has been looking ahead to.
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for Mar. 23 at 9 p.m.,” Bradley said. “I want to be holding up that trophy. We’ll see what happens.”
