Stanford wrestling stayed busy over the winter break, as the Cardinal continued to gear up for the heart of its Pac-10 schedule in February. Although inconsistency continued to plague the squad on the whole, All-American junior Tanner Gardner (125 pounds) and junior Josh Zupancic (157 pounds) remained solid contributors.

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Freshmen Zack Geisen and Jake Johnson face off in practice. Both managed first-place finishes at their respective weights in the Menlo Invitational, Jan. 7. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/6659
Alvin Chow

Freshmen Zack Geisen and Jake Johnson face off in practice. Both managed first-place finishes at their respective weights in the Menlo Invitational, Jan. 7.

The Cardinal (2-5, 1-1 Pac-10) sent wrestlers to the Reno Tournament of Champions Dec. 20, the Southern Scuffle Dec. 29 and 30 in Greensboro, N.C., and the Menlo Invitational Jan. 7 in Atherton, Calif. The Cardinal also hosted the inaugural Stanford Duals as Columbia, No. 23 Lehigh and Pac-10 rival UC-Davis came to the Farm Jan. 5.

Gardner and Zupancic placed first and second at Reno, and second and sixth in the Southern Scuffle, respectively. Their early-season performances earned each of the Cardinal wrestlers a spot in the national rankings. Gardner’s 22-3 overall record earned him the No. 4 ranking entering the Stanford Duals while Zupancic, who has placed in every tournament he has competed in this year and holds a 25-7 record, held the No. 16 ranking.

Junior Scott Loescher, wrestling at 165 pounds, also garnered a third-place finish at Reno. At the Southern Scuffle, freshman Zach Giesen at 184 pounds and senior Brian Perry at 165 pounds were the only other Stanford wrestlers to advance to the second day of competition. Each went 0-2 in the second day of competition, however, and failed to place.

After the Scuffle, Stanford coach Kerry McCoy was confident that with a return to a normal training schedule his team’s performance would improve heading into the dual-meet season.

“We didn’t wrestle our best, but we made some errors that we can work on,” McCoy said. “Now we have some time to train and get ready for the dual-meet season, which is the most important. We have gotten some great chances to see conference teams, but we’re going to have to kick it up and improve to meet our year-end goals.”

Gardner was perfect at the Stanford Duals — earning wins over all three of his opponents, two by technical fall. Overall, though, the Cardinal finished the day far from perfect. Stanford lost 27-11 to Columbia (4-0), 34-9 to No. 23 Lehigh (8-5) and 29-12 to conference rival UC-Davis (2-3). The Lehigh dual in particular carried special significance for McCoy.

“Lehigh was my home for five years,” he said. “I have a lot of strong ties to that program, including [head coach] Greg Strobel, who was my coach for almost 10 years and is one of my mentors.”

The loss to UC-Davis, on the other hand, should only intensify the budding rivalry between the two wrestling programs — at least from Stanford’s perspective.

“UC-Davis is a conference opponent, so a lot rides on each match,” McCoy said. “Right now, there are a bunch of guys we recruited wrestling for them and vice versa.”

Another performance of note at the Stanford Duals was sophomore Luke Feist’s 6-5 decision over Columbia’s eleventh-ranked Matt Palmer at 174 pounds. Nevertheless, McCoy and the Cardinal were frustrated with their 0-3 showing in their first home duals of the season.

“Overall, I’m very disappointed in the way we performed,” McCoy said. “We’re better than what we showed, but our guys need to be able to step up and win the close ones, and that didn’t happen today. Hopefully, we’ll learn from this and get better.”

The Menlo Invitational was a chance for Stanford’s freshmen to prove themselves, as Giesen and Jake Johnson each earned first-place finishes at 184 and 174 pounds, respectively. Capping the strong showing was freshman Cameron Teitelmann who took second place at 133 pounds.

The Cardinal will finish off a light month of competition in January as they face San Francisco State, Cal State Bakersfield and Menlo before they hit the heart of their conference schedule in February. Next up for Stanford is a home dual against San Francisco State this Friday at 7 p.m. in Burnham Pavilion.