With the wrestling season dwindling down, the Panthers are looking forward to the last regular season meet.

Eastern Illinois will travel Sunday to Northern Illinois to face the Huskies, Eastern Michigan and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville.

The Panthers, who had last weekend off , have been practicing harder to prepare for this meet and the regional meet two weeks after.

“We’ve just been working steady, practicing twice a day on Tuesday and Thursday, once a day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” said head coach Ralph McCausland. “It’s just a little bit longer periods of time. The key coming down to the end of the season, more so than anything is to keep everybody healthy.”

While Eastern had been wrestling multiple matches throughout the tournaments, sometimes the number of matches had been reduced to one during dual meets.

This weekend’s meet will have three matches, the same as the final event of the season.

“Three matches next Sunday is going to be good, because in two weeks it’s going to be the same thing,” McCausland said. “It’s going to be three matches at the regional tournament.”

Sherko out for season

Jason Sherko, the junior 197-pound weight class wrestler, looks to be out for the remainder of the season.

Sherko missed the last seven matches. He had an MRI done last week on the injury.

“(The MRI result) doesn’t look good,” McCausland said.

He could not elaborate on what the injury is or the extent of damage done.

With only two meets left, McCausland does not think he will put in another wrestler at that position.

“At this point in the season, it doesn’t seem possible (to put in another 197-pound wrestler),” he said.

Time to ride

Riding time is something people would expect to hear in bull riding, not in wrestling.

Yet riding time can decide a tied match for wrestlers.

“Riding time is where the top man in the position on the mat has control of the bottom person for one minute more advantage,” McCausland said. “So if you have two minutes, I have to have three minutes. If I have a minute advantage over you, I get one additional point.”

If no one has a minute advantage, neither player will get that point.

McCausland said riding time has been in college wrestling since he started wrestling in college.

He also said they’ve discussed whether to get rid of riding time.

Olympic style, Greco style and freestyle wrestling do not have riding times.

Instead, the referees will let the match go on for a short amount of time and then pull both wrestlers to a neutral position again.

The outcome of the match has been affected all of the time by riding times, McCausland said.

“It’s happened many, many times,” he said. “(Freshman Tommy) Reamer tied his match up against South Dakota State, but lost it on a minute and three seconds of riding time.”

Reamer, the 149-pound weight class, does not remember having any other matches like that where the riding time mattered.

“Basically I just got taken down in the first and got hurt a little bit and was out of it for most of the match,” Reamer said. “He was able to ride me until the third period when I recovered for a little.”

Panthers work on the small things

Having two weeks instead of one week off, McCausland hoped to view videos of all the wrestlers in action.

He said they had not gotten to watch all of them yet.

“We’ve watched bits and pieces of them,” McCausland said. “We’re just trying to work individually with them right now.”

After the Panthers got back from the three day road trip to North Dakota State, South Dakota State and Northern Iowa, he gave them a day off to try and get back into good sleeping and eating patterns, along with catching up on their studies.

Now, with this weekend being the final season match, he is working on items with the wrestlers that he has been seeing on the videos.

“It’s just the small things,” McCausland said. “I think a lot of times, the guys that make that transition from high school to college, they think it’s all this major stuff, and it’s really not. You can simplify things even more so then your mind will let you. The small things are the things that are kind of the freshmen’s Achilles heel.”