Following a busy winter break schedule that saw Stanford wrestling compete in five dual matches on the East Coast, the Cardinal is finally ready to start its conference schedule tonight with a pair of road meets in Davis, Calif.

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Stanford wrestling will begin its Pac-10 schedule tonight at UC-Davis.

At 5:00 p.m., Stanford (6-1) opens its Pac-10 season against a solid Boise State (4-1, 2-1 Pac-10) squad, featuring five wrestlers ranked among the top three in the Pac-10 at their respective weight classes. In the second half of the dual meet double-header, the Cardinal will take on rival UC Davis (3-1, 1-1 Pac-10), who has traditionally been a tough obstacle for Stanford to overcome. Last year, the Aggies triumphed over the Cardinal, 29-12, while in 2006 the score was an even more lopsided 38-6 in favor of Davis.

Still, third-year head coach Kerry McCoy’s squad is off to a fine start itself. The Cardinal came close to a five meet sweep on their recent road trip, losing just one dual, 21-16 at Lehigh.

“The trip was a little bit disappointing because we wanted to go undefeated — we wanted to win all our duals,” McCoy said. “But to go 4-1 under the circumstances was a pretty good showing. The guys kept up, fought adversity, so they did a good job. I think that was really a turning point for the team to realize that, okay, we can do hard stuff, and now getting ready for the Pac-10 season they’re ready to go out and prove that we are one of the top teams in the conference.”

Senior captain, heavyweight Phil Doerner, was optimistic that the close loss against the Mountain Hawks could wind up serving the Cardinal well for the experience down the road.

“I think our match with Lehigh is going to help us out,” he said. “Just because it was so close, and we really hadn’t been in any close matches yet this year. And now we’ve been there before, so next time should turn out even better.”

“It kind of got us going back into our dual season,” sophomore Zack Giesen, 184 pounds, added. “Even having five dual meets in a row there kind of changed the mentality a little bit, got the mats back under everybody. We saw some easier opponents and some tougher teams, so it kind of prepared everybody and got everybody back into the mode.”

Still, the focus now is on moving ahead against two of the better teams in the Pac-10. If the Cardinal is to succeed tonight, the team will need contributions from some of its newer standouts as well as its veteran stars. One such young wrestler, sophomore Jake Johnson, 197 pounds, hopes that the squad’s east coast matches will give the team a solid morale boost heading into its conference schedule.

“It was a trip in which we got a whole bunch of victories, so I think that gave us a lot of confidence which will be good to have going into these duals,” Johnson said. “We wanted to open up and take some risks and those were the perfect matches to do it, because they won’t have much bearing on the end of the year. But it gave guys a chance to practice their moves.”

Johnson and fellow second-year wrestler, redshirt freshman Lucas Espericueta, 149/157 pounds, have been welcome additions to the team’s lineup this season. Both have notched 17 wins already in the still-young season.

“I’ve been feeling good,” Johnson said. “I moved up weight classes so I stopped having to cut weight and I think that really helped me. I’ve been getting a lot of guys tired and winning matches late, winning third period matches and I think that’s part of the reason.”

After tonight’s action, the Cardinal will take to the mats next Thursday night at home against another Pac-10 rival, Cal State Bakersfield, before facing Menlo and Portland State on Friday, also at home.