Tanner Hoops | Staff Writer
Fall sports are wrapping up and winter sports are set to kickoff this month at Buena Vista University (BVU).
The Beaver wrestlers kicked off their 2016-17 campaign on Saturday, November 5, when they took part in the Wisconsin-Platteville tournament. The Beavers started the season off strong, ending the day with two 2nd place finishers, as well as fourth, fifth and sixth place finishes.
“We don’t put a lot of weight on the wrestle-offs, we tend to focus more on early season tournaments when putting together our lineup,” says Head Coach Jeff Breese, “our freshman will have an impact in the lineup, for our entire roster has 32 guys and 28 of them are sophomores and freshmen.”
Breese has been pleased with the work ethic he’s seen early in the season.
“We’ve learned we have a lot of guys with a lot of fight, our freshman aren’t taking a backseat to any upperclassmen. It’s really the guy that decides to impose his will.”
Breese, who enters his third season at BVU this year, offered his thoughts on the Iowa Conference.
“It’s going to be a dog fight. It’s one of the toughest places to wrestle and probably won’t ever change, new coaches always coming in with new ideas. [Athletic Director] Jack [Denholm] is a guy with a very impressive wrestling background, as a coach and an Iowa Conference guy and he’s challenged us to ask ourselves ‘Why Not?’ And you never want to say ‘That’s the way we’ve always done it’ but sometimes it slips in there.”
“To me, there’s really only having a good year and a bad year,” continued Breese when asked about his expectations for this season, “and what we consider a good year is probably a great year by many others standards. We want to do some big things this year.”
The men’s basketball team will start their season on November 18 when Gustavus Adolphus comes to town. 21st year Head Coach Brian Van Haaften is very excited about his newcomers this season.
“We have nine new players this year, I think this is one of the best recruiting classes we’ve had in a long time. I think this is a really special group, we have all the positions covered”
Van Haaften was quick to credit Denholm in the day-to-day operations as well.
“Jack’s been great, he is a really athletic based guy. He’s been finding ways to get the community involved, we really appreciate that from him. We’re all excited to have Jack be a part of this athletic program.”
Van Haaften looks to his four senior captains to be leaders on and off the floor this season but believes talent and athleticism can come from any player on the roster.
“We’re ready to play, we’ve got a lot of competitors,” continued Van Haaften, “We’ve got a very good defensive basketball team this season, I think we’re going to be a lot of fun to watch.”
Likewise, women’s basketball Head Coach Janet Berry is excited about the talent she’ll get to work with this season.
“We replaced four seniors who were all starters last season but we have a terrific senior group this year,” Berry explained, “we are also really excited about this incoming class of recruits.”
Berry was able to get a preview of her squad and was pleased with the results.
“Last week we had our scrimmage with Iowa Central and they were a little short on numbers but we did some really nice things, saw a lot of different players.”
The Beavers will be traveling to NAIA-power Morningside for their final preseason tuneup on Wednesday, November 9.
“The way the schedule is set up, we have a bit of a road trip to Minnesota, we’ll take on some MIAC teams that are usually very good in their conference,” Berry continued, “then after finals is our trip to the Pacific Northwest which should be a lot of fun.”
The Beavers open the season Tuesday, November 15th on the road against Augustana. The first home game will be Tuesday, November 22nd against Waldorf.
