Third times the Charm
Johnston hoping this trip to NCAA tourney produces elusive title.
By J.R. Ogden The Gazette
ST. LOUIS ” Joe Johnston has been here before. Twice. This time, he’s confident he won’t leave empty-handed.
A junior 157-pounder at the University of Iowa, Johnston is tired of good seasons, followed by entry into the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, followed by an early exit.
”I feel pretty relaxed… pretty confident in what I can do,” he said. ”I know who’s out there, what I need to do.” All he needs to do, he and Coach Jim Zalesky said, is wrestle. Pretty simple.
”The first match is key for him,” Zalesky said.
Johnston has had trouble getting started at the NCAA meet. He won 33 matches as a red-shirt freshman and finished fifth in the Big Ten Championships. He won 27 matches last year and moved up to fourth at the Big Ten meet.
However, he left the NCAA tournament wondering what went wrong. This year’s tournament begins Thursday and runs through Saturday at the Savvis Center.
”I’m just going in to wrestle,” said Johnston, 22-7 and ranked eighth after a thirdplace finish at the Big Ten meet in Iowa City. ”I don’t think it’s going to matter how my opponent wrestles. It’s how I wrestle. If I wrestle, I’ll win it all.”
He’s not bragging, not even making a prediction. He’s simply confident in his wrestling.
”I can’t say that attitude is going to guarantee a win, but if you don’t have that attitude, you’re never going to win,” he said.
If all it’s going to take is wrestling, why hasn’t Johnston won it ” or even placed ” before? Because, Zalesky said, Johnston sometimes lets his opponents set the pace of the bout. That has to end this weekend.
”I think he can beat any of those guys if he forces his style on the guy,” Zalesky said. ”When he’s on the offense and he’s clicking and going, people don’t like to wrestle him. He’s tough.”
The problem is, at times, Johnston has let up. Sometimes it’s a slow start, sometimes it’s a poor finish, sometimes it’s a lapse in the middle of the match.
”You got to do it for seven minutes,” Zalesky said. ”You don’t do it for five minutes or four minutes.”
So the plan is to attack ” all the time.
”I’m all business,” Johnston said. ”I’m ready to go.”
And, although those past two NCAA tournaments didn’t produce medals, they at least gave him experience.
He’s wrestled and beaten Illinois’ top-ranked Alex Tirapelle. He’s lost to secondranked Ryan Bertin of Michigan four times, but the gap isn’t too wide. He’s wrestled fifth-ranked Muzaffar Abdurakhmanov of American, falling 9-5 at the Midlands this year. He’s lost to sixth-ranked Trent Paulson of Iowa State and No. 7 Matt Lebe of West Virginia by a combined three points.
He’s close.
“I’ve wrestled almost all of the top guys and I know I can beat them all if I wrestle my match, “he said. That, again, is the key. It has to be his match.
“His best thing to do is attack offensively all the time, “Zalesky said.
Contact the writer: (319) 368-8696 or [email protected]
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