ASU wrestling displayed its arsenal of talent Saturday night for the Maroon and Gold Intrasquad scrimmage at Wells Fargo Arena to showcase the 2016-17 team.
The Maroon squad defeated the Gold squad 19 to 15 for bragging rights.
"Virtually 80 percent of our kids have never put a Sun Devils singlet on and wrestled in Wells Fargo Arena," head coach Zeke Jones said. "That was primarily our most important objective."
The Sun Devil wrestlers and the coaching staff looked at the M & G scrimmage as an open practice, but there is no doubt that the ASU roster is littered with exceptional potential.
One soon-to-be-standout for ASU is redshirt freshman Zahid Valencia, who competed against three different current and former wrestlers of the ASU program. Valencia wrestled in the 174-pound weight class Saturday and will continue to compete under that distinction to start the season.
"We wanted to put three people on him because it's like anything, it's harder to fight three people than one," Jones said. "The challenge is the conditioning, the challenge is mental toughness and I think he did that and responded pretty good."
One of those challenges that Jones wanted Valencia to face was former ASU wrestler Kevin Radford, who spent three seasons competing for the Sun Devils from 2011 to 2015.
Valencia was a three-time California state wrestling high school champion and he finished seventh at the Junior World Championships in 2015-16.
Some other commanding matches that did not go unnoticed by those in attendance were the bouts between redshirt freshman Josh Shields and graduate student Kaylon Sencio; and freshman Chance Ikei and junior Ali Naser.
"I'm looking for intensity," Jones said. "I'm looking for fire and fight. I think in all three positions we were okay. I think we're making some progress on our feet. Maybe need to work a little more on the counter offense on top. We weren't really trying to put guys on their backs."
The Naser/Ikei duel got the scattered crowd going at Wells Fargo early in the event, and the Shields/Sencio clash kept that same intensity in motion due to an explosive collection of take-downs and sly escapes by Shields to keep the entertainment level high.
Junior Ali Naser wins the 133 weight class 5 to 3 over freshman Chance Ikei. #ASUWrestling #ItMustBeTheNameALI pic.twitter.com/tdNcfeXwKV
— Tyler Handlan (@tyler_handlan) October 30, 2016
Shields defeated Sencio 14-5 in the 157-pound weight class for the highest scoring match of the evening, while Naser took down Ikei in an ultra aggressive showdown that ended 5-3 in the 133-pound division.
Jones said that the success of a season is not defined in one night, let alone in a competition between teammates, but the key is to build off of this as a step in the right direction.
"We're looking for development, improvement," Jones said. "Where are we at this time of year? I think we probably look like an October wrestling team."
ASU will apply this event towards their season with the hope of bigger things come March for the National Championships in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Sun Devils will have their first official match of the year on Friday, November 4 at the Bank of Colorado Arena when ASU will face off against the Northern Colorado Bears.
"We want to get our hand raised every time we compete," Jones said. "That's the perfect world. The reality is we're going to get punched in the face a little bit, we're are going to have to get up and respond to it. These guys have high goals and they're just chipping away at it."
Reach the reporter at thandlan@asu.edu or follow @Tyler_Handlan on Twitter.
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