By William Bowman
LEWISBURG -- As he sat in his chair in Iowa City back in January and watched the soon-to-be 22-time national champions Iowa Hawkeyes take apart his Bucknell wrestling team, Bison coach Dan Wirnsberger knew his program was at a crossroads.
Fast forward a couple of months to St. Louis. The Bison have a school-record six NCAA qualifiers and junior Andy Rendos becomes just the fourth BU All-American and first since the rebirth of the program.
Wirnsberger knew the reason for the resurgence was because of the trip to Iowa City.
Now, the Bison are taking things a step further. Bucknell announced its wrestling schedule for the 2009-10 season on Tuesday, a slate highlighted by Iowa's visit to Lewisburg on Nov. 27, the Friday after Thanksgiving.
Bucknell will also host EIWA foe Rutgers along with Iowa with the matches starting at 4 p.m. in Sojka Pavilion. It will be the first time Sojka Pavilion will host a Bison athletic event other than men's and women's basketball.
"This is pretty significant, getting a team like Iowa in here," said Wirnsberger of the defending national champions. "It's means a lot to us. It says a lot about our program and how far we've come."
It will be the second consecutive year Bucknell will face Iowa, which has won a record 22 national titles. The Bison traveled to Iowa City, Iowa, last January and lost 40-3.
But it was the trip that turned the season around, Wirnsberger said.
"Going out there was a huge step for us," he said. "We purposely went out two days in advance to get around the best program in the country. We realized the things they were doing were not much different from what we were doing."The result was not great, but when we got back from that trip, I told the guys we could go one way or another. We wrestled extremely well after that trip."
Tickets will be required for the Iowa and Rutgers home date and will cover all three matches. Tickets will go on sale later this fall. All other Bucknell wrestling home dates will feature free admission.
The November date with Iowa and Rutgers is the first of four 2009-10 home meets for the Bison, who will host Drexel, East Stroudsburg and Princeton as part of the Bison Duals on Dec. 18. That event, as well as home matches against Brown (Jan. 21) and American (Feb. 20) will be held in Davis Gym, the customary home venue for Bucknell wrestling.
Despite the Iowa/Rutgers duals being on Black Friday, Wirnsberger expects a big crowd.
"This is wrestling country, Pennsylvania District 4 is a hotbed of wrestling," said Wirnsberger. "Getting 2,000 or 3,000 people into Sojka Pavilion is going to make a great atmosphere."
