Lights Wrestling Update
Winter 2002

The wrestling team is 8-0 in duals so far this year with home duals January 17th and Saturday, January 19th. Tyson Thivierge and Emmett Willson both placed in the prestigious MIDLANDS TOURNAMENT. Thiverge placed second; as a non-seed he defeated the #7, #10, #2 and #3 on his trip to the championship finals at 184 pounds. Tyson might be the first NAIA wrestler ever to reach the finals in the MIDLANDS. Willson, only a sophomore scored five wins and three losses in placing sixth. He lost a close bout to the #2 ranked NCAA Division I wrestler Jon Trenge of Lehigh 2-1 and lost to Nick Preston of Ohio State by scores of 5-3 and 3-1. Preston is ranked #4 in Division I. Among Emmett's five wins two were over Division I ranked wrestlers Erik Gladish 10-4 (ranked #6) of Arizona State University and Ty Matthew 5-1 (ranked #8) of Indiana University.

Northern finished in 12th place as a team in a field with over 60 teams. Awesome performance! Placing 12th was the best Northern has ever performed, taking into account they only took four wrestlers to score team points compared to each team above them who had 10 point getters and eight teams below whom also had 10 point getters. Other Northern wrestlers who have placed in the MIDLANDS Tournament are Matt Campbell, 3rd in 1992 and Turk Lords, 6th in 1996 and 4th in 1998.

Tyson Thivierge in action!

Northern did not have the team performance that Coach David Ray expected at the Dickinson State University Classic. There were 12 teams, including NCAA Division III Champs, Augsburg College. Northern finished second with six placers to Augsburg who had ten placers. In the championships, Northern met Augsburg five times winning four matches. Individual performances at the meet: 133# Caleb Schaeffer 1st, voted outstanding wrestler; 141# Eric Dunmire 3rd, 174# Kyle Fisher 2nd, 184# Tyson Thivierge 1st, 197# Emmett Willson 1st, HWT Matt Carter 1st.
  

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