One year after earning a wild card berth to the NCAA Championships, junior Greg Perz is picking up where he left off.

Perz won the 184-pound weight class at the Central Missouri Open on Sunday afternoon.

“My first match was a little slow,” Perz said. “I felt sluggish. It was my first match of the day. We weighed in at eight but I didn’t wrestle till 2:30.”

The Panthers placed high Sunday, but Perz was not sure of the exact place.

Head coach Ralph McCausland said he was pleased with the overall results from the meet.

“The guys wrestled hard,” McCausland said. “We wrestled some great situations. Coach (Clayton) French and I are pleased. They conferred with each other. Overall, I was pleased. Conditioning was good for this time of the year. We want to be able to make progression from week to week.”

The team has some items to work on according to McCausland.

Two of the items he mentioned included the positioning of the back leg to the way of holding an opponent.

“There isn’t one thing I can point to right now,” he said. “There’s about 20 different things I have written down, and not one thing pertains to the whole team. As an overall performance, I was pleased.”

Three of the wrestlers won three of five matches at the tournament, while senior Casey Carrino and Joe Trinka went 4-2. Carrino placed sixth in the 141-weight division, while Trinka was one match away from placing in the heavyweight division.

“Joe Trinka was one match away from placing,” Perz said. “For a true freshman, he did great. He lost the match in overtime.”

McCausland said the multiple matches the players wrestled helped the team a lot in seeing how they are wrestling this year.

While he was watching how the wrestlers were doing, McCausland was also proud of the support the team gave each other.

“I was pleased with the results,” McCausland said. “I think it was great for the first match. We sometimes had three to four guys wrestling at one time. What I liked was that the guys would go to each other’s corners and help support them.”