Though the “wireless Internet” at Scottrade Center in St. Louis continues to confound us, we can at least give you an update after the first session of the NCAA wrestling tournament now that the server appears to be working and we’re back in the comfort of our hotel for a few hours (the night session begins at 6). The Gophers went 6-3 in their early matches, with the only real surprise being a tough 3-1 loss to No. 8 seed Gabe Dretsch (174 pounds). Until then, things were going about as well as possible for Minnesota: lightweights Jayson Ness (pin), Mack Reiter (pin) and Manuel Rivera (technical fall) scored big bonus points early (you get two points for a pin, 1.5 for a tech fall, which is winning by 15 or more, and 1 for a major decision, which is winning by 8 or more) to give the Gophers an early lead. The Schlatter brothers eked out victories before Dretsch’s upset loss; Roger Kish, wrestling with a brace/sleeve on his back, gutted out a victory at 184. Unseeded Justin Bronson (197) and Ben Berhow (heavyweight) lost close matches and will compete with Dretsch in the wrestlebacks tonight. The other six wrestlers will compete in the second round of the championship round for the right to advance to tomorrow morning’s quarterfinals.

Inspirational story of the day: Arizona State’s Anthony Robles, who was born with just one leg, competed at 125 pounds and nearly pulled off an upset of No. 1 Angel Escobedo of Indiana. Robles, who won an early match, led Escobedo 2-1 late in the second period before ultimately falling 4-2. The match was right in front of us (there are eight mats, as you can see from the shot we snapped from the media dining room — not the press box, thankfully) and we couldn’t take our eyes off it.

All in all, it was an eventful first session. Tonight’s action will be huge if the Gophers are going to challenge Iowa for a title. Finally, as promised, here are some leftover words of wisdom from Gophers head coach J Robinson (who surely would have approved of this Fasola-link!):

“I think people forget how hungry they are. The wolf is still feeding. The difference is there are young wolves out there. They want what you had five years ago. They’re freshmen. They’re hungry. They’re there for a purpose. And that’s what people forget. They forget how hungry the other people are on the way up. Some of the seniors are maybe looking for it to be over … but it’s like a lot of things. You spend your whole life to get there. There are people who want to be champions. If you don’t want it as bad as them, they’re going to do better than you. … There are eight stages in the development of a society: Great faith to liberty to spirtual faith to abundance, then to complacency, then apathy, then dependence and then bondage. What happens is when you get to the top, you do what? You take it easy, relax. You don’t invest the time. That’s the way life is. … They don’t do what they did before. But the wolf is still hungry. And the wolf is going to be fed. If you don’t do it, someone else is going to do it.”

If that doesn’t make you want to run through a brick wall, we’re not sure what does.

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