For the Virginia wrestling team the holiday break offers a chance to relax both academically and on the mat. After competing at the Nittany Lion Open Dec. 2, the Cavaliers do not have another dual or open tournament until the Southern Scuffle, which takes place in Greensboro, N.C. Dec. 29 to 30.
"We need it," Virginia coach Steve Garland said. "We've got to work a lot of technique. We've got to continue to improve."
The team will work on technique through repetitious mat drills, intra-squad wrestling and other workouts the wrestlers have gone through every week already this season. Such systemized workouts are necessary to inculcate the instinct and skill needed to succeed in collegiate wrestling.
The difference this break offers is that the team has a chance to get back into the weight room.
"The fun about the break is the guys starting hitting the weights again," Garland said. "It's about regenerating your body, getting that muscle mass back, just really being healthy, eating right."
The practices become a bit more relaxed, producing an atmosphere Garland said should be conducive to improvement.
"Coming to practice, the pressure's not there," Garland said. "Your guys can really just work on for three weeks straight nothing but improving as much as [they] can."
Despite taking a break academically, the Cavaliers still work on the mental aspects of wrestling in addition to fine-tuning their individual style. The extra time gives the wrestlers a chance to watch film of their matches from the first part of the season.
Break is time to focus on "just a lot of the finer points of how you wrestle," junior Rocco Caponi said. "Just changing up a few things on your shots or your set-ups. You go over a lot of film and find out what you did wrong and take that time and try to fix that."
The Cavaliers will try to get in as much work as they can during those four weeks, because once the end of December rolls around, they will be jumping right back into the fire.
"We get right back into the grind again for the Southern Scuffle, which is one of the toughest tournaments in the country," Garland said.
Virginia participated in the Southern Scuffle last season, finishing 17th of 32 teams. If many of the same teams come to this year's tournament, the Cavaliers have a chance to improve their overall team finish. Last year's roster included many teams Virginia has already wrestled and succeeded against this season, such as Cornell, Edinboro, Navy, Lehigh, Binghamton and VMI.
The Cavaliers garnered individual successes last year as well. Junior Eric Albright, then a sixth-seeded sophomore, made it to the semifinals at 133 pounds before losing to the second seed. Albright finished fourth, losing to fourth-seeded sophomore Joe Baker of Navy. Caponi, then a fourth-seeded sophomore, lost in the quarterfinals at 184 pounds to the fifth-seeded sophomore Eric Chine of Kent State. Caponi beat Chine in a rematch for fifth place.
The X-factor for the Cavaliers this year will be the talented but relatively inexperienced underclassmen. Other than the Nittany Lion Open, the toughest challenges the young Cavaliers have faced were at then-No. 5 Michigan and unranked Lehigh at the Northeast Duals. Of the 20 matches in the duals against the Wolverines and Mountain Hawks, nine freshmen and seven sophomores wrestled for the Cavaliers. Although Virginia only won five of those 16 matches, Garland viewed the matches positively.
"Watching [freshman] Michael Chaires in particular when he beat the Lehigh kid, it was amazing how good he just stayed in position -- he was hitting the right things we work on," Garland said. "That's something we work on as a team, mat returns and grinding the guy and being tougher than the guy. So I couldn't be happier with those guys."
If all goes as planned, the work during break will reinforce the skill and experience this young Cavalier team has acquired in the past month and lead to success at the Southern Scuffle and beyond.
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