While the national economy may be floundering, the Illinois wrestling team projects good returns at this weekend’s intrasquad wrestle-offs. The scrimmage itself makes a comeback after a one-year hiatus, while six of the team’s seven national qualifiers from a year ago prepare to once again take to the mats at Huff Hall on Saturday morning.

Wrestle-offs provide a valuable evaluative tool for head coach Mark Johnson, as he prepares to set the team’s permanent lineup before heading to North Carolina for the ACC/Big Ten Clash beginning on Nov. 15. With a crowd he estimates will fill out between 500 to 600 people, his focus will be on how well each individual competes under the added pressure.

“I want to see how they do in the conditions, how they react,” Johnson said. “Some kids are totally different, some kids are much better when the popcorn’s popping. Some kids go into a shell, so the more you can put people in front of what you’re going to wrestle like in real competition the better off you are, so that’s we use it for.”

The 125-pound weight class is the sole roster division not returning a starter from last season. Junior All-American Jimmy Kennedy, who took second in the Big Ten’s 133-pound class a year ago, and reigning Big Ten Champion (157 pounds) Mike Poeta head a powerful Illini lineup.

The senior Poeta, who finished one point shy of capturing the last year’s National Championship, is “having some problems with his knee” – just one in a series of health-related setbacks that has also sidelined NCAA qualifier John Dergo. The absence of the injured starters is one reason Johnson is placing “more emphasis on who does well in those weight classes,” and why the grapplers realize the importance of performing at the top of their respective games.

“You’ve got to prepare for (wrestle-offs) like you would prepare for a regular meet,” said Poeta, who has missed every wrestle-off since his freshman year due to various injuries. “This is just training for the end of the year. You put that singlet on, you put the pressure on, the fans are there, the nerves start kicking in.”

A collection of eight juniors and seniors is now entering its third year wrestling together for the Illini, contributing to a sense of “brotherhood” Poeta said is especially strong. While he stressed “there’s no ego thing” when it comes to facing your teammates in a competitive meet, Kennedy admitted to some friendly discourse leading into Saturday’s meet at 11:30 a.m.

“Sometime we mess around like that, send out these team e-mails just joking around with each other,” Kennedy said. “But no one likes getting ragged upon when you lose a match, so you try to keep it all in fun and games.”