The world changed, but their goals haven't

Montana State University-Northern wrestling capped off an exciting finish to the 2019-2020 season with an individual national championship from Nick Kunz in Iowa last March.

It was an exciting time for Northern, and for longtime head coach Tyson Thivierge. However, no one knew, in those moments, that the NAIA national wrestling championships would be the final Northern sport to play out a season because not long after the tournament, coronavirus took hold, and it hasn't let up.

Shortly after the Lights returned from nationals, things changed and changed in a hurry. Sports were halted and, eventually, all Montana universities went to remote learning, which meant, the MSU-N wrestling team left campus and, like for everybody, life changed, and it changed in a hurry.

Still, Thivierge now says, looking back, he was able to make the most of the time spent apart from his team, though, like it has been for so many coaches, it was anything but easy.

"Navigating the pandemic was tough on us as a program," he said. "We stayed connected via text messages, phone calls and the occasional Zoom call. The guys were able to get creative and set up home gyms and continue to do what they needed to improve for this season. There was no perfect formula on what to do considering this was new territory for us all."

Zoom became a huge tool for coaches to communicate with their teams during the spring and summer, when so many teams were separated. And while it was indeed hard, recruiting became perhaps the toughest chore for Thivierge during these unusual times.

"I have never encountered a recruiting season like we went through last spring and I hope it never happens again." Thivierge said. "Not being able to get bodies on campus and to see the community was devastating to our recruiting abilities. We literally got back from Nationals, had a week of school and the university was prepping for Spring Break and all of the sudden a pandemic hit hard and we were tossed into a tornado of scenarios which prevented us from having kids on campus. Fortunately, we returned nearly the entire team and were able to get creative and sign a few others to boost our line-up."

Indeed, the Lights do return a stout lineup, and now that team is back on campus, and back together as a unit. And while Northern would be closing in on the start of a new season right now, - the schedule is still a bit of unknown yet - the Lights are still pushing forward, and getting ready for when that time does come.

"Having these guys back has been amazing," Thivierge said. "I have never been away from my guys that long and I missed them terribly. They are working hard, and as a staff we have had to implement some precautionary things to stay together for training purposes. As of now we are just taking it day-to-day and we will continue to do so. We all hope we continue to see improvements with health standards so we can compete this season."

The Lights will be excited to hit the mat. But, as with almost everything sports-related to the pandemic, wrestling will have to go through some changes until the day coronavirus is no longer a hindrance to sports, or daily life.

"As of now, I don't see any tournaments taking place during the fall term, but things change daily with the COVID situation," Thivierge said. "As a team, we can only control what we can control and that is staying healthy, staying in our bubble and improving daily. Currently as a Conference, the Cascade is looking into dual meet scenarios where we meet at potential locations to host three to four duals in one day. Regardless of travel restrictions, we all have to continue to do our part and make sure we have healthy bodies competing. If duals take place, we will do our part to make sure we are as healthy as possible and hopefully we are able to get some competitions in this fall."

Yes, wrestling will be different, but Thivierge also sees something unique about the upcoming season - something very positive about his sport as it pertains to a global pandemic.

"On a personal level, I believe wrestling has been prepared for this for decades," he noted. "We take extreme precautions sanitizing mats, dealing with infectious skin diseases and such. As unpopular as it may be, I think wrestling is one of the cleanest sports, there are only two wrestlers on the mat competing at one time. I feel we can beat this and move forward to a national championship."

And, whether there's a pandemic, or it's any other year, a national championship is always the goal in Tyson Thivierge's program. He's always driven and motivated to keep striving for his Lights to bring that big trophy back to the Armory Gymnasium, and neither COVID nor anything else will ever alter those expectations.

"My expectations have never wavered," he said. "We are training to be NAIA National Champions. We have one of the biggest returning rosters in my 13 years and we have some amazing talent. It's all about putting together the best season and post season that we are capable of. The focus right now is to stay healthy so we have that opportunity."