With just three regular season duals left before the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, Stanford wrestling is gearing up for its final push in what is a critical year for the program. With the impending graduation of returning All-Americans — No. 6 Tanner Gardner at 125 pounds and No. 10 Josh Zupancic at 157 pounds — coupled with strong support from various sophomores and juniors, the time is ripe for the Cardinal to make a strong push for a Pac-10 title.

As senior captain and heavyweight Phil Doerner explained, the team’s focus has been on the conference tournament all season long. But with so few opponents left between now and the tournament’s start on March 2, every remaining opportunity that Stanford wrestlers have to sharpen their technique is a precious one, indeed.

“I think we’re on the right pace,” Doerner said. “Coach McCoy always says that it’s practice until the tournament, and so we’ve got three more practices. Even though the matches count, they’re still practice, but three more and then the tournament which is where it all begins.”

Tonight, the Cardinal (11-3, 4-2 Pac-10) travels to San Luis Obispo, Calif. to take on conference rival Cal Poly (5-4, 4-2) before hosting Cal State-Fullerton (9-5, 6-1) at noon on Sunday in Stanford’s final home dual of the season.

“Cal Poly has always been sort of a rival for us,” Doerner said. “Traditionally we don’t really like each other that much. And Fullerton’s one of the top teams in the Pac-10 so that’ll be an interesting match — it’s going to be close. It’s probably going to come down to some bonus points in a lot of close matches, so that will be exciting.”

Also on tap for the weekend is Gardner’s pursuit of Stanford history as the two-time All-American is just four wins shy of Matt Gentry’s Stanford career mark and is two pins on the year away from tying Chris Horpel’s record set in 1975. Perhaps most significantly, though, this weekend should give McCoy’s squad the chance to rebound from last week’s disappointing 24-15 loss to Oregon State, which was only Stanford’s third defeat of the season.

“We’re all pretty excited,” Doerner said. “We know we should’ve beaten Oregon State — we lost a few matches we probably should have won. So it’s great to turn around and wrestle really quick after you lose and kind of get that loss off your mind, hopefully with a win.”

Sunday’s dual will mark the last home competitions for Stanford’s four graduating seniors — Gardner, Zupancic, Doerner and Bobby Pease at 165 pounds — who will all be honored before the match, scheduled to begin at noon in Burnham Pavilion.