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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPSMarch 19, 2011Zach ReyPHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 285-lb. Champion THE MODERATOR: Joined by our champion, Zach Rey, improves 34-1, No. 1 seed defends again this evening. We'll open it up for questions for Zach at this time. Q. When you get your breath, can you tell us about that sequence in the third period? ZACH REY: Third period, funky guy, rolls around the mat, we got into a funky position, where I was on my back for a little bit. But I knew just to hold onto that leg and roll through and try to get to my stomach. What it turned out to be he just giving me a lot of riding time and killing a lot of clock in the third period. After that scramble, my shoulder was a little hurt, but 17 seconds left, pretty tough to score on in a short amount of time, so I knew I was in a good spot. Q. Steve Mocko is obviously in your corner. First year working with you. Talk about his impact on you. In fact, I thought I saw a foot sweep there. ZACH REY: Brought a whole 'nother level to my conditioning and fighting and just my confidence. Because nobody else in the country works out with a guy as good as I do every day, Steve Mocco. One of the best in the world. Working out with Steve made me tougher, be able to hand fight, use my strength, use my power, my size against other opponents. And it helped me big time to get to where I am now. Q. You're the third champion tonight from New Jersey, and I'm just wondering if you guys take a little bit of pride from that. I know the other guys that came through talked about that this evening. ZACH REY: I have a lot of family here being we're so close to my hometown. Hometown is two hours a way, relatives 30 minutes out. Good to have a lot of people rooting for you, nice to see some people in the crowd, friendly faces, and cheers you up, makes you want to work harder to earn the championship. Q. Third last year, first this year, can you talk about what you did over the past year or two to jump up those spots? ZACH REY: Trained in Russia, trained in Russia for about a month during the summer. Gave me a little different culture of wrestling and styles. Taught me in more scorer's position they don't go as hard, but you learn the techniques and the moves and what to look for when somebody's trying to take you down. So that, and we got a new guy, Steve Mocco, on staff, and we have one of the best coaching staffs in the country, if not the best coaching staff in the country. They're so good at what they do. And I'm so happy they're my coaches. Q. You're Lehigh's first champ in a while I believe since Troy Letters. Talk about bringing this program back. Are you ready to take that jump and compete with the big boys again? ZACH REY: Yeah, we have three All-Americans this year, we should have had four or five in my eyes, and there are a couple of guys hurt. So I believe we just finished seventh, seventh or eighth in this tournament. And that's great from where we were the last couple of years. We were -- I think it was 30th, last year 17th, and now we're top 10. Next year we don't graduate a single person. We graduate one weight, 125, Mitch Berger, he's tough. But we've got a young freshman coming in ready to win a National championship, so we're going to have all nine guys plus that guy. We'll be right up in the title race next year. Q. Will you take a little bit of a break now that you've achieved this goal? I know you wrestled a lot last summer, you made the team that went to Italy. Certainly you improved with the extra wrestling, or do you take a break or -- ZACH REY: Two weeks. Two weeks. Take a short break. But me and my workout partner, Steve Mocco, are going to be looking to make -- we'll be going to the U.S. Open, try to get that spot on the World Team this year. We've got to get right back at it, start battling, get him ready and get me ready for the freestyles international training. Q. When you were wrestling a guy you've seen as often as you've seen as Ryan, how does that change your preparation at all? Do you think different going into the match against a guy you've seen as much? ZACH REY: You know, the first two times of wrestling this year I think I beat him by three or four points, and that was mainly because he wasn't ready for my size and strength. He changed that come EIWA Finals. I'm not saying I took them lightly, but I was a little too confident going into that match, and he scored on my -- he didn't score, I didn't score on flaws when I should have scored. So coming into this match, wrestling Ryan, I was ecstatic, because I was able to get my revenge for not being able to achieve the EIWA championship. But I would much rather have a NCAA championship than an EIWA championship. Q. What do you think about adding to the legacy of Lehigh, being another National champion? ZACH REY: Lehigh is a great program, always will be, always was, and it's great that we got another National champion for the team, the culture, the fans, everybody in the community of Lehigh wrestling. And, you know, we had two finalists, and we've come far -- we didn't have All-American for three to four years, now we have two finalists, three All-Americans. That's amazing and we're making huge strides to become the best team in the country. THE MODERATOR: Congrats. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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