In this episode, The Daily catches up with our very own NU Wrestling beat reporter Sid Sivaraman. This episode explores how the team has done this past season and how they’re entering their post season.
SID SIVARAMAN: Hi, I’m Sid, and I cover wrestling for The Daily, and I know a little bit about wrestling.
ISABELLA JACOB: Hi, I’m Isabella, and I’m an assistant audio editor for The Daily, and I know nothing about wrestling. Today, we’re discussing Northwestern’s wrestling team as they head into their postseason.
From the Daily Northwestern, This is Isabella Jacob,
SID SIVARAMAN: and Sid Sivaraman.
ISABELLA JACOB: Welcome to a new episode of Cats Corner, a podcast about sports and Purple Pride. This week we are talking about Northwestern wrestling.
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ISABELLA JACOB: Sid, thank you for joining us.
SID SIVARAMAN: Happy to be here.
ISABELLA JACOB: So, can you talk a little bit about how collegiate wrestling works and just a little bit, give us a little brief spiel about the sport.
SID SIVARAMAN: Alright, so wrestling is a really fun sport to watch, to cover. This is folkstyle wrestling, so not your WWE or your martial arts or stuff like that. Basically, the majority of the season is dual meets, which is when one school, like Northwestern, meets with another school. And then, basically there are 10 weight classes. It goes from 125 pretty standardly, from every weight, every eight pounds, 125, 133, 141 up to 197 and then there’s a heavyweight division, 285. Basically it’s one-on-one, two wrestlers, and then the score of their match, depending on the margin of victory, will give team points. Whoever has the most team points wins the dual.
And so that’s what Northwestern has spent the vast majority of their season so far doing, is these dual meets against other Big Ten schools. And now they’re heading into the postseason, which is now on an individual basis. So, within each weight class, there’s their own Big 10 championship. So the 125-pound weight class will have all of the 125-pound wrestlers wrestling against each other for the 125-pound title. And then that’s the big headline, is who wins in each weight class. The great news about it is that there are so many matches in a typical meet or in a typical tournament, so by the end of the night, you will probably have a very good grasp of what wrestling is and how it works.
ISABELLA JACOB: We’re heading into the postseason, right? So, how has Northwestern looked during this season? How have they been ranked?
SID SIVARAMAN: Yeah, so Northwestern wrestling ended their season 4-7, a pretty remarkable improvement on last season, when they went 1-9 and basically their coach, Matt Storniolo, has done a good job of developing these wrestlers. They had a bunch of injuries last year that really limited how competitive they were. In the Big Ten, Northwestern is not the worst school by any means. In the Big Ten, Penn State and Iowa are the top two schools in the nation for wrestling, and so it’s very, very difficult to be very, to be good in the Big Ten. There are definitely underdogs. It’s not easy to wrestle at Northwestern, but at the same time, they’re not among the titans, I would say, of the Big Ten.
ISABELLA JACOB: So how many wrestling matches have you been to this quarter, do you think?
SID SIVARAMAN: This quarter I went to all the home ones, except for Little Rock, because I was on winter break, probably like five or six. I didn’t know really much at all about the sport when I started. But, you know, I, over time interviewing the wrestlers, interviewing and watching the matches, I’ve gotten a feel for the sport.
ISABELLA JACOB: If you could describe the atmosphere of a wrestling match, what would it be?
SID SIVARAMAN: It kind of depends on the school you go to. The Big Ten Championships, March 8 and 9, in Evanston, which we’re hosting, are going to be probably the loudest Welsh-Ryan Arena is going to get for wrestling this year.
For Northwestern, I’d say it’s a tight-knit family, really. There have just been a number of coaches who have built a very, who’ve built long standing traditions here, and built NU into a very tight knit program, to the extent they might not have a ton of people at every meet, but it seems like everyone knows each other really well, you know. It’s really more of a family than anything, right?
NU Wrestling, I think, is one of those families, where it transcends your four years here at Northwestern, and you really become part of it for life.
ISABELLA JACOB: So, from all, the facts you know, and the names you know, I would think that you’ve been covering this for years. So,how did you get into this?
SID SIVARAMAN: I would say it’s definitely a great, a big adrenaline rush to be right next to the mat every meet. My first meet was the Northern Illinois nonconference meet, and I was a devo, I was starting out. Wrestling, I just said, you know, why not, right? It didn’t seem like a sport that many students or many people here at NU really have an impression of. Over the years when the team has had success, historically, looking at old, you know, news articles, it has had a consistent fan base.
Something that I really got an appreciation for is that, like at NU we have, we’re a Big Ten school, we have all these sports. We have great coverage of these sports, basketball, football, baseball, even sports like volleyball or lacrosse or field hockey, will get great coverage. It doesn’t matter how hard you cover a sport, the narratives are still there, right? You know, there’s still stories going on. Like, if I wasn’t the beat reporter for The Daily, who was telling the story and giving coverage to a sport that I think deserves a little bit more coverage here at Northwestern?
ISABELLA JACOB: So you said that we’re hosting the championship March 8 through 9. What is that going to look like for NU and also how are you prepping for it, as well?
SID SIVARAMAN: Welsh-Ryan Arena is going to be packed for a sport that isn’t men’s basketball or women’s basketball.
Northwestern could have some headlines. They have a couple wrestlers, Evan Bates at 197, Trevor Chumbley at 157, Maxx Mayfield at 165, who could, even Dedrick Navarro at 125 who could pull off some major upsets. There’s usually a big upset or two every Big Ten Championship, like every Big Ten Championship.
The best wrestlers in the country, probably in the world, are going to be in Evanston March 8 and 9. There will be a Big Ten Championship preview coming out sometime next week, once the seedings come out.
If it’s your first wrestling event, I think it would be a great place to start. Opening sessions are on Saturday. It’s just kind of the opening rounds of each weight class. They’ll have, probably a couple wrestlers going at each time, a couple different bouts going at each time. And then Sunday is like the championships. So semifinals, finals, championships.
ISABELLA JACOB: Awesome, and thank you for talking with me, Sid.
SID SIVARAMAN: Yeah, thank you for letting me yap about Northwestern wrestling.
ISABELLA JACOB: Of course, that’s what we want. I feel so wrestling-educated.
SID SIVARAMAN: It’s an exciting season. This is the first time they’ve hosted since 2001, the Big Ten Championships, so definitely an opportunity that does not come around every year, an opportunity to get into a sport that, if you give it a chance, is really exciting.
ISABELLA JACOB: Awesome. Hey, I think I might have to pull up to the wrestling championship.
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SID SIVARAMAN: You might have to.
From the Daily Northwestern, I’m Sid Sivaraman
ISABELLA JACOB: and I’m Isabella Jacob. Thanks for listening to another episode of Cat’s Corner. This episode was produced by me, Isabella Jacob.
The Audio Editor of the Daily Northwestern is Anavi Prakash. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Kelley Lu and Jillian Moore. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.
Our theme music is “Take Your Shot” by Xennial, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.
Follow us on X and Instagram @thedailynu.
Email: SiddarthSivaraman2028@u.northwestern.edu
Email: izziejacob2028.1@u.northwestern.edu
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