Coming off a big win against Duke Sunday, the Cavaliers will take on Maryland in College Park Friday and end the season with a dual meet against No. 2 Iowa State Sunday.
Iowa State (11-3) presents a particularly daunting opponent. Coming into their dual meet against Virginia Tech Friday, Iowa State has won their last six dual meets, capped by a convincing 27-12 win against No. 3 Missouri. Of their 10 starters, nine are ranked nationally in the top 15 in their weight classes. The Cavaliers (7-8, 2-2 ACC) are undeniably the underdog, but they are looking forward to the challenge of taking on such a powerhouse program in front of a home crowd.
"The reason I put them on the schedule, is because competition means everything in wrestling," Virginia coach Steve Garland said. "It's going to be a great experience for our kids to just go out there and try to compete with them."
Even if the Cavaliers don't win on Sunday as a team, they are hoping to win several key individual matchups. In particular, the team hopes sophomore Eric Albright can win his match at 133 pounds. After a brilliant start to the season, in which Albright was ranked as high as 10th, Albright lost two straight matches to lesser opponents and dropped out of the rankings. A win against Iowa State's Nick Gallick, ranked No. 14 in one poll, may put Albright back in the rankings and give him a huge boost of confidence entering the ACC tournament.
"You go out and beat a guy ranked 14th, 15th in the country, all of a sudden, you're going, 'Wow, that might change Albright's season around,'" Garland said. "Albright at the beginning of the year was the greatest thing since sliced bread and he's had some problems lately. This could be the match that really wakes him back up and says, 'hey, this is what you're capable of.'"
Maryland (15-5, 4-0 ACC) also presents a challenging opponent to Virginia. The Terrapins have won six out of their last seven dual meets, three of them against ACC opponents. The Cavaliers plan to use this matchup against a high-quality opponent to help prepare them for the intensity of postseason play.
"We've had a goal from the beginning of the year to win the individual ACC tournament," Albright said. "Everything up until then is just a building block to get to the individual ACC tournament. It doesn't matter if we didn't win a match all year, everybody goes in there, and all the records are fresh."
If the opponents the Cavaliers face this weekend aren't enough of a challenge, the team also has to deal with a laundry list of injuries. Most notably, redshirt sophomore Rocco Caponi, ranked No. 19 at 184 pounds, has a knee injury, suffered in his match against N.C. State last Friday, making his status for this weekend is uncertain. Several team members will wrestle with bruised ribs, and one player has come down with a sports hernia. If nothing else, the Cavaliers would like to come out of the two meets at least as healthy as they came in.
"I'm trying to get into ACCs with the best lineup possible," Garland said. "This whole year, we really haven't had our full lineup together consistently. I'm not making excuses either, that's not why we lost all those matches, but it definitely didn't help things, so I'm trying to stay healthy after this weekend."
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