Redshirt junior Dan Yates didn’t walk onto the mat last night at Michigan’s men wrestling intrasquad meet.
He swaggered onto it.
Yates wore an amount of confidence that, well, a guy should wear after he qualified for the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament as a sophomore, which Yates did last year.
“It wasn’t as much as going into it like over confident or anything,” Yates said. “(I) wanted to present an exciting, hardnosed, grind-it-out type of wrestling. Instead of getting into position and stopping, (you) just always (want to be) moving, always trying to improve your position and score.”
The intrasquad meet divided up the team into a Maize and Blue squad and allowed Wolverine wrestlers one final chance to prove themselves to the coaches before the season starts. With last night’s win, Yates completed a sweep of the preseason wrestle-off to secure a starting position for the season.
Yates, who competed for the Maize team, put on a takedown clinic against redshirt freshman Brandon Hill. Though he has found success in his first two seasons at Michigan, Yates will face a new challenge this year competing at the 174-pound. weight class this season, a move up from the 165-pound. weight class where he competed the previous two years.
“(I) wanted him up at the (174-pound. weight class) last year,” said Michigan coach Joe McFarland. “He can really increase his training load and he’s got much more horsepower at 174.”
Yates added: “I feel a lot more comfortable and feel a lot more energetic. (I) feel that I can present a more intensive style at that weight class.”
Yates came out very strong with a single-leg takedown on Hill and continued his aggressiveness throughout the first period. He had four takedowns and received two points for a near fall to put him up 10-3 after three minutes. He continued his aggressiveness in the second period with two more takedowns and five back points. His fierce style gave him a 20-4 technical fall win at the 4:41 mark in the match.
“We’ve been working on building an intense, exciting style of wrestling at (the) University of Michigan, something that in the past we kind of let slip a little bit,” Yates said. “We’ve really been enforcing it a lot in our practices lately,”
McFarland said he was impressed and attributed his confidence in this year’s team to its offseason training.
“We needed to become a little tougher, so we made sure we had a good summer and really good preseason,” McFarland said. “Our workouts have been tough and challenging, the guys have responded really well.”
After a long summer, and a strong individual performance, Yates said he is looking forward to a successful season as well.
“As far as a team we don’t plan on anything less than the best,” he said. “We put the work into be the best, so that’s our goal is to be the best.”