Northern State got off to a quick start, but was unable to sustain it during its home opening wrestling action Thursday night.

The Wolves dropped a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference opener against in-state rival Augustana 27-6. It was the first time for a few Wolves competing at Wachs Arena, as well as the first time for head coach Josh Nolan at the helm.

“It was great. We welcomed it. We are privileged to have that kind of noise or emotion going into it. It was fun, and some of these guys, you know, first time experiencing it,” said Nolan. “We want to throw them into the first and we wanna get them acclimated to it. So, really just happy with the effort and we can continue to get better technically and that’s what we’re aiming to do.”

As if the atmosphere of the home opener against Augustana wasn’t enough, Poe from Poe’s Barber Studio was brought in and six lucky winners were able to get a free haircut mat-side during the dual.

“It’s amazing man. Going to Poe and knowing him and just knowing what kind of person he is. What we want to do as a program is continue to elevate not only ourselves, but everybody that is involved in our program,” Nolan said. “He cuts a lot of our guys’ hair and he’s a great person. So, whatever we can do to share the environment with him and continue to help other people, that’s what we want to do.”

The excitement carried into the first two matches of the night, the lone two that the Wolves took away from the Vikings. It got started with Sloan Johannsen, who was able to use the environment as well as personal motivation to get an overtime victory 4-1.

“A lot of, I don’t wanna say emotion behind it, but I really, really wanted this match for myself. Last year we upset Augustana, so I was looking to really start off hot,” Johannsen said. “And hopefully set the road for my team.”

The match started off slow as no points were scored in a stalemate of the first period. Wrestling a familiar opponent, each wrestler on the mat knew what the other was looking for.

“Obviously, every wrestler comes in with a game plan. I could tell that he knew I was trying to get to my shot, and it’s a right side of the body shot. A lot of people know it’s coming. If you watch film, you know it’s coming,” Johannsen said. “So, he was playing hard in not letting me get that shot. He did a really good job of it.”

Sloan started the second period down, and escaped just 13 seconds into the period to give him a 1-0 lead. In the third period, his opponent, Christian Olsen went down and escaped in 5 seconds to tie the match. Regulation ended in a 1-1 tie forcing overtime.

“If he rides me out for a minute, he gets a point at the end of the match. And if that regulation were to end and he had a riding time point, I would have lost 2-1,” Johannsen said. “So, it’s really important to get that first escape out and try to ride on top. Obviously, I didn’t do a super job of that as you saw.”

The two 125-pounders went into overtime, and Johnannsen had just a little bit more energy remaining after seven minutes of wrestling.

“My goal out there was to wear hard on him, get him kind of gassed out and I could kind of feel in the third period, that’s when I need to put my offense on,” Johannsen said. “Especially because if it does go in overtime, which it did, I get in on his legs and he’s gassed out, it’s a pretty good percentage chance for me.”

With the crowd still excited from the overtime win, Teagan Block was able to use that energy in his match.

“It was awesome. Sloan and I were talking when we were warming up like one-two punch baby, let’s go get this started. And when the crowd got loud, I was in the tunnel. I had no idea what was going on,” Block said. “I figured Johannsen got us going, so I just knew I needed to piggyback on that and keep it rolling.”

Block kept it rolling with a takedown just 30 seconds into the match, followed up by four near-fall points for an early 7-0 lead halfway into the first period.

“I’ve been working with (assistant coach) Wyatt (Turnquist) and Josh off that elbow pass to a far ankle and they keep telling me, get back to it, get back to it,” Block said. “He was heavy on his left foot and I knew once I got that elbow over my head, that foot was gonna be right there and it was go time.”

With a 7-1 lead, Block knew he had to keep pushing and remembered a saying from his former teammate and now assistant coach.

“You know, Wyatt tells me all the time, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time,’” said Block. “So, I just gotta keep focusing on the next best thing, score the next point, get gritty.”

The redshirt-senior capped off his match with a 10-3 win. After taking his redshirt year last year, he was ready for the moment.

“Redshirting last year gave me an opportunity to just kind of focus on the little areas of wrestling where I needed to get better. And I think it was a huge blessing in disguise because obviously, it sucked to be on the sideline,” Block said, “but it was a really good opportunity to learn how to be selfless and cheer on my teammates while improving my craft. And you know what, it feels amazing to get back in front of the home crowd.”

The Wolves got what they needed out of their first two matches of the night and couldn’t have asked for a better start.

“Those guys are fire starters. That’s what we’re looking for them to be. We love starting at 125 and letting those guys go out there and rip,” said Nolan. “You know what kind of effort you’re gonna get from them every time, so we’re super happy with it.”

The Wolves weren’t able to take any more matches on the night, and although they ended in losses, there were some positives to take away from each bout.

“Go out and give full effort. Get to your offense, get to your stuff and try to dictate some of those positions. I feel like in a lot of those matches, we did that,” said Nolan. “We were in the fight and you look at a position here, position there, it goes our way and the team score, the match score looks a lot different at the end of the day. And that’s just the nature of wrestling.”

With the first dual of the season behind them, there’s plenty of time for the Wolves to get on track, with the first test coming on Saturday in Bismarck, N.D. against UMary.

“We gotta continue to focus on the bigger picture. Our philosophy as a team right now is to get to growth. We want to get to growth as fast as we can,” said Block. “We have practice and that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna grow and we’re gonna take what happened tonight, we’re gonna shelf it for now. We’re gonna get better (Friday) and they’re gonna see a better version of this team on Saturday.”

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