Coaches and players from SF State’s three winter sports talked about their upcoming seasons at the first ever SF State Gators Athletics Winter Media Day held Wednesday noon.
The wrestling program was the first team introduced at the conference and head coach Lars Jensen provided a brief outlook of the upcoming season.
“(It’s a) very tough schedule this year — we have four Division I schools we are competing against this year,” Jensen said. Two of those teams include California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo and Stanford University.
Jensen was flanked by a pair of national-qualifying wrestlers, Jordan Gurrola and Johnny Costa.
“The best way to improve is to wrestle people that are better than you,” Gurrola said, a junior. “If you’re wrestling people you are beating on every day then you aren’t going to improve.”
Joe Danahey, director of sports information, led the conference. He went over last season’s accomplishments for each team and then opened the floor for reporters to ask their own questions.
Men’s basketball was represented by sophomore point guard Warren Jackson, forward Jon McMurry and head coach Paul Trevor, who said he was happy with the recruiting class.
“We returned a core group that was developing throughout the course of the year last year,” Trevor said. “We had a great recruiting class with three all-state players, including one from a New Jersey prep school and one from Australia.”
Jackson and McMurry said they were excited about the upcoming season.
University of San Francisco is the Gators’ first exhibition game of the season on Nov. 5.
“It’s been a little chippy at practice so now to actually be together and go against someone else is going to be real good,” Jackson said.
Women’s basketball was the last team to speak at media day and was represented by head coach Dennis Cox and forwards Laura Lawson and Naila Washington.
“It’s a really exciting time for our program — we’ve got a lot of new faces,” Cox said. “We only have three players back from last year.”
Lawson and Washington said they aren’t dwelling on last year’s 1-25 record.
“We’re just ready to play — we’re not worried about the past — we’re just looking at the present and future,” Washington said.
