The regular season has come and gone for the Blue Streaks wrestling team, and with the conclusion of another memorable season for JCU wrestling comes the most important event of the season: the 2012 Ohio Athletic Conference Championships.

The Blue Streaks (6-5, 3-2 OAC) will travel to Tiffin, Ohio this Saturday to compete in the OAC Championships hosted by Heidelberg University. Six OAC teams will compete for the conference crown: Baldwin-Wallace, Heidelberg, John Carroll, Mount Union, Muskingum and Ohio Northern. Action is set to get underway at 10:00 a.m.

Click here to follow live results of the OAC Championship.

John Carroll will head into the final regularly scheduled event of the 2011-12 season with momentum on their side as they concluded the regular season with a dominating 34-6 win over Muskingum on Friday, Feb. 17.

The win over the Fighting Muskies not only built momentum for the Blue Streaks going forward, but also accomplished the team goal of sending the graduating seniors out on a high note on Senior Night.

“We always want our seniors to have a great experience while they're here at Carroll,” said coach Volkmann. “All of those guys have done a great job for us. They've been a pleasure to work with. I hope that it's been as good of an experience for them as it has been for me.

“You always want to end your season on a positive note. It does give you some momentum certainly going into the OAC Championships and we're going to see how it all sorts out.”

The Blue Streaks had numerous individual wrestlers finish the regular season with impressive records and will depend upon those same individuals to lead the team on the mat this weekend. Freshman Terner Gott (23-3, 3-0 OAC), senior Sean Gill (22-8, 4-1) and junior Bryan Steinmetz (25-8, 4-1) all finished the season with 20 plus wins.

Senior Jim Nemunaitis (19-9, 3-2) and sophomore Todd Gaydosh (17-7, 1-2) also finished just short of 20 wins, proving that this Blue Streaks team is both deep and talented.

“We've continued to make some progress throughout the course of the season. Gott is the real deal for a freshman and you usually don't run into a guy like that,” said Volkmann. “Sean Gill has had the season of his life and has led us as a co-captain in every way imaginable. We hope he continues to have that kind of success [this weekend].”

“Steinmetz is our other co-captain and he's only a junior, so we'll have him back next season. He's worked as hard as he can and he's made a lot of progress and provided a lot of leadership for us.”

The Blue Streaks are looking to improve upon a fifth place finish from a year ago, and will need to be "giant killers" if they expect to challenge for the title. Ohio Northern captured its seventh OAC regular-season crown with a 5-0 conference (12-4 overall) record and will look to capture its first OAC Tournament title since 2001. Mount Union finished the regular-season with a 4-1 OAC (10-4 overall) record and will look to repeat as tournament champions. JCU lost to both teams in the regular season (21-13 to Ohio Northern, 22-12 to Mount Union)

The winners and runner-up at each respective weight class at the OAC Championship will earn All-OAC honors. The Individual winners at each weight class will also earn an automatic bid to the 2012 NCAA Division III Championships at the La Crosse Center in La Crosse Wisconsin, March 9-10. 

“The [OAC] Championships are another type of animal all together,” added Volkmann. “We're going to give them hell.”