GoHeels Exclusive: ACC Wrestling Notebook

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

After three months of competing primarily in dual meets and focusing on how they can best help the team, North Carolina's wrestlers have embraced a more individualized approach since the end of the regular season.

Sure, the Tar Heels still want to see their teammates succeed. But they also know now is the time when all of their hard work will pay off the most.

"It's just about chasing the goal and the dream that you've had for a while," Coleman Scott said. "And it's about doing the maximum. You've done the maximum all year. Now it's time to not tighten up. You should be confident and loose because you know you've put in everything.

"There is no loss of sleep because I don't know if I should've done this. No, there isn't that question. You've done it. So just go out there and compete and be you."

That's what 10 UNC wrestlers will look to do Saturday at the ACC Championships in Blacksburg, Va. Here are five things to know ahead of the event:

Daniel's surge

The Tar Heels' top-seeded wrestler is redshirt senior Cory Daniel, the No. 1 seed at heavyweight. A two-time NCAA qualifier, he earned All-ACC honors last season with a runner-up finish at the ACC Championships.

Daniel, who is looking to become the first UNC heavyweight to win an ACC title since Justin Dobies in 2008, enters Saturday having won nine of his last 10 bouts. He credited much of his recent success to the work he's put in with assistant coach Tony Ramos.

"You just see something different about him," said Scott of Daniel. "You just see things clicking in his head, his belief, really, of himself and what he's done and the work he's putting in. Cory is a big ol' athletic dude, and he's using it to his advantage."

O'Connor's challenging road

Perhaps the most highly-contested weight class will be at 149 pounds.

Listed at No. 5, redshirt freshman Austin O'Connor is one of three ACC wrestlers ranked within the top eight of InterMat's 149-pound national rankings. The others are Duke's Mitch Finesilver (No. 4) and NC State's Justin Oliver (No. 8). O'Connor is 1-2 against Finesilver and won a 9-4 decision in his only bout with Oliver this season.

As the No. 2 seed at 149 pounds, O'Connor, who is a team-best 28-4 on the year, will receive a first-round bye. Still, he'll likely have to beat both Oliver, the No. 3 seed, and Finesilver, the No. 1 seed, to win an ACC title. But O'Connor has passed numerous tests all season.

"We knew he was good," Scott said. "But do you know you're going to have that consistency from him? Probably not. Then you get into it and you're like, 'Holy cow.' Alright, there are five matches that are pretty good. There's 10. And through the season, you're going like, 'Wow, we're through the season, and we haven't really seen a dip.'

"The kid works as hard as anybody. He does his weight right, he lives right. So doing those things, that all plays a factor into this."

'These guys are winners'

O'Connor is one of four Tar Heels who will be competing in their first ACC Championships. The others are freshman Joe Heilmann, the No. 4 seed at 125 pounds; freshman Brandon Whitman, the No. 6 seed at 197 pounds; and redshirt sophomore Sawyer Davidson, the No. 5 seed at 165 pounds.

Scott said his message to them will be simple.

"It's just do what they've done their whole life," he said. "These guys are winners. It's not like we're pulling kids off the street. These guys have won their whole life. And I'm excited for them because you don't get many opportunities in collegiate athletics, especially wrestling."

Competing with the best

The ACC was awarded a league-record 37 NCAA qualifications for the 2019 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, all of which will be up for grabs at the ACC Championships.

With 60 wrestlers competing across 10 weight classes, 61.7 percent will earn a trip to the NCAA Championships in Pittsburgh. Scott referenced that number as evidence of how much the conference has grown.

"I always say kudos to the admin for stepping up 10 years back and saying, 'Hey, we know we can win in these sports. Let's build these Olympic sports up across the conference,'" Scott said. "And they've made some very good hires across the conference.

"It's showing very quickly. We've had two NCAA trophies taken home in the last three years, I believe, which is a first ever. So it's showing we can compete with the best of the best."

Added motivation

With a 23-16 win at Duke in its last meet on Feb. 22, Carolina earned a share of the ACC regular-season dual meet title for the first time since 2002. But the Tar Heels aren't satisfied.

This weekend, they'll be vying for UNC's first ACC Championship since 2006.

"For that sake, these guys want to win for their guys," Scott said. "They saw the trophy. They felt it in that dual meet. At the end of the year, we could've been a little better. We pushed through a lot of those because we had to. But these guys are ready to go out there and do something special. And I'm excited for them."

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Cory Daniel

Sawyer Davidson

Joe Heilmann

Austin O'Connor

Brandon Whitman

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