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The Indiana Daily Student

sports wrestling

IU continues road travels with Keystone Classic

Traveling and sports go hand-in-hand, and IU wrestling is no different.

The team has been on the road the last two weekends, competing in tournaments against teams around the country.

Continuing the weekend of Nov. 17, the Hoosiers will once again be traveling, this time making their way to Philadelphia for the 18th-annual Keystone Classic tournament.

Though the travel may seem to have a negative effect on the team, IU Coach Duane Goldman said it is all just part of the sport.

“It’s just part of what we do,” Goldman said. “We just have to go off and get the competition, and we have had one home match already, and that is typical of this time of year.”

Returning from a weekend in Illinois, Goldman said while a few wrestlers, including junior Ryan LeBlanc, stood out, the team as a whole seemed to lack the intensity of the sport.

“It lacked intensity more in the way of apprehension to really get in there, get physical, get rough and try to take control,” Goldman said. “They wanted things to go their way without really shoving it down the other guy’s throat.”

Because of this lack of intensity, the Hoosiers have been changing the way they train. Practices have taken on a more personal feel, and each wrestler is being held more accountable, Goldman said.

“We have the whole team in at one time now, and we are breaking them into small groups, so we can really have more eyes and hands on at all times,” Goldman said.

With this new style of practice, the Hoosiers have gradually changed the way they train to accommodate for the weekend tournaments. While all the wrestlers have trained, Goldman said the lineup will be slightly different than what it was at the last tournament.

“We are taking fourteen guys, so we are not taking as many as we were originally, just because I think we need to focus more on the guys that will be in play this season,” Goldman said. “With the injuries that we sustained, we still have a couple of weight classes that are up in the air as of now, so we need to be able to take a better look at who might be able to fill those spots.”

The Keystone Classic will serve as a prime spot to see how Goldman will fill the weight class positions because of the individual style of the tournament.

“It’s not really a team race, it being a tournament, and there is no team score,” Goldman said. “They get back to the individual component of it.”

With competition scheduled for all day Sunday, 15 teams will go head-to-head.
Goldman said it will be a very tough tournament.

“There will be a lot of tough teams there,” he said. “Hopefully, we will have some good showings and see what we can do.”

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