STERLING, Colo.  Western Colorado's 13th-ranked wrestling program sets off on a busy weekend starting with a match at Northeastern Junior College (NJC) on Thursday evening.

The Mountaineers step back into Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference competitions the following two nights, squaring off against Chadron State College on Friday and Colorado School of Mines on Saturday.

THE HISTORY

• Western has regularly scheduled NJC and continues to welcome Mountaineers alum and NJC head coach Colby Duncan back home. This season, after defeating the Plainsmen early in the schedule, Western will make the trip to Sterling to battle a second time this season.
• Since the 1995 matchup, Western holds a 14-6 edge over Chadron State. The Mountaineers put together an eight-match win streak over the Eagles, who broke the string with an 18-17 win in January 2017. Western won five of the next seven duals, with Chadron winning in Gunnison last season, 22-16.
• The Orediggers had won four in a row before Western changed the outcome with a 29-15 win over the ThunderWolves last season. Overall, Western is 13-4 against CSUP, beginning with a 25-16 victory in January of 1996.

WESTERN COLORADO HEADING INTO THE WEEKEND

• The Mountaineers rolled to three wins at their Tracy Borah Duals on Jan. 11, edging out Colorado Mesa, 27-26, and defeating Newberry (S.C.) College 37-9 before downing Simon Fraser (B.C.) University 48-6 in a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference dual.
• Last week Western rang up a 39-10 win over visiting San Francisco State, scoring bonus-point wins from seven of the eight wins during the dual.
• Western's Cole Hernandez on Monday was ranked No. 1 at 174 pounds in the National Wrestling Coaches Association's (NWCA) individual NCAA Division II rankings. Hernandez is the first Mountaineer to sit atop the individual rankings since Brandon Supernaw in the 2018-19 season, also at 174 pounds.
• Also listed in Monday's NWCA release is Dean Noble, who moved up a spot in the 149 rankings to No. 3. Both Hernandez and Noble are 12-1 this season with each of their lone defeats coming at the Midwest Classic, Noble's coming in the championship match and Hernandez', who finished third at the Classic, in a semifinal.

CHADRON STATE COMING INTO THE WEEKEND

• The Eagles are 0-2 in duals, both against RMAC foes, but earlier in the schedule picked up an individual champion at the Younes Hospitality Open and the Dakota Wesleyan Open.
• Cody Pinkerton captured the 285 title in Dakota, defeating a teammate who was wrestling unattached at the event. And at the Younes open, Keegan Gehlhausen won the 184-pound bracket.
• Gehlhausen is ranked fourth in the NWCA rankings at 184, while teammate Hunter Jacobson is 10th on the 125 list. The duo have Chadron just out of the NWCS top 25, receiving 15.0 points as the 26th team displayed in the national team rankings.

COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES HEADING INTO THE WEEKEND

• The Orediggers are 7-2 overall, 1-0 in the RMAC, and ranked 16th in the NWCA rankings.
• In its most recent dual, CSM lost a 25-19 non-conference decision to visiting Cal Poly Humboldt on Jan. 17. One week earlier, it earned a 21-13 home win over Chadron State in the Orediggers' first RMAC dual on the schedule.
• CSM's national team ranking comes from six wrestlers listed in the individual rankings. The highest of those is No. 4 Grayston DiBlasi at 141 pounds.
• Also with top-10 rankings are No. 8 Cody Thompson (149) and Christian Lopez (125). Just outside the top 10 is 11th-ranked Marcus Caro (157) and Ryan Cody at No. 12 in the 197 listing. Rounding out the individual rankings of Orediggers is No. 14 Wyatt Reisz at 174.

UP NEXT
Western returns to Paul Wright Gym on Feb. 7 for its final home meet of the schedule, taking on Adams State on the Mountaineers' Senior Night and Operation Red night.