|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPSMarch 16, 2012Anthony NelsonST. LOUIS, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Tell me your thoughts about qualifying for the finals. ANTHONY NELSON: Yeah, you know, it's something you work for your whole life. It's what I've been working for all season. It's a great accomplishment just to make it there, hopefully to win it tomorrow. Q. Tony, I believe when you came out of high school, you may have been undersized. With the tradition of the heavyweight at Minnesota, what does that do to help you doing what you're doing right now? ANTHONY NELSON: I came in at about 225. A little smaller guy. Worked on getting bigger. Just got that tradition, like you said. Cole Konrad, Brock Lesnar, Garrett Lowney, all those guys. I got to workout with some of them. Heavyweight before him was Ben Berhow. I worked with him all year long. I think that's been huge for me. Q. Coming into your freshman year, did you foresee all this success? ANTHONY NELSON: Coming in, you're hoping for good things to happen. It's a long season. College wrestling is a hard‑fought battle every time you go out there. It feels great to be where I am. I just thank God for everything He's done for me, all the successes I've had. Q. Tony, obviously it was a tough morning for Minnesota. It's an individual sport, so you focus on yourself. To make it to the finals, how important is that for your squad? ANTHONY NELSON: Yeah, it was a rough start. Penn State has a big lead on us. I don't know if we can catch them or not. Making it to the finals, kind of shows them we still got some fight in there. I think a lot have been winning here in these last couple matches, couple rounds. We're going to do what we can and hopefully that picks them up. Q. You're a pretty active heavyweight, maybe because you were a lighter guy. Talk about things you had to work on to be good at this. ANTHONY NELSON: It's a completely different style of wrestling. You can see it when you're out there. It's a lot slower paced. It's just hard to move a guy that big around. I try working on just staying active, moving my feet. I kind of like to try and wrestle like a smaller guy if I can and wear those bigger guys out, take some energy out of them, so... Q. You'll be wrestling the defending champion in the finals. Do you have any matches against Zach? If not, he's one of those big strong guys. ANTHONY NELSON: I've never wrestled him so far. I almost had him last year, but I lost in the second round. You know, I'm excited to go out there, get a chance to knock off the defending national champ. I'm just going to, like I said, be active, move, try and wear him out, see what I can do. Q. Want to take us through the final 30 seconds of the semifinal match. ANTHONY NELSON: We were both kind of feeling it there. We were both kind of tired. It was a good match as we were going. I knew he was going to try and sweep to that right side. I felt it coming. I saw an opening and I tried to run around as hard as I could. He was able to scramble real well with me. But I caught behind the arm, inside the thigh. I was able to hold him there for two, so... Q. Talk a little bit about your team. You won the National Duels. You have some leadership that probably helped you along. Talk about the legacy and the season you had as a group. ANTHONY NELSON: We have a great team. Jay Robinson, head coach, he's a great guy. He knows how to get the team ready for everything. Winning the National Duels was really exciting. It's a team championship. It's not a bunch of individuals. You had to win it as a team. That's really exciting for us. It shows that we got a lot of young guys, a good future ahead of us, so... THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Tony. Good luck tomorrow. ANTHONY NELSON: Thank you, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|