Ranked sixth in the nation, the Lakers are getting ready to take on the competition at the 2017 NJCAA Wrestling National Championships Friday and Saturday in Council Bluffs.

"I believe the guys are ready to put themselves all out there over the next two days and see what happens," said Cody Alesch, head wrestling coach at Iowa Lakes Community College.

The team enters nationals with eight qualifiers, four of whom are ranked nationally. They are Christian Dualney, ranked second at 197 lbs, George Farmah, ranked third at 133 lbs, Kaz Maia, ranked fourth at 149 lbs, and Isaiah Cox, ranked seventh at 184 lbs. Other members of the team are Brian Maas, wrestling at 125 lbs, Brady Brott at 157 lbs, Andrew Tate at 165 lbs and heavyweight Cayelon Barton.

The team has had one and a half weeks to hone their skills between the regional tournament and nationals.

"The national tournament is a completely different tournament than any other match you wrestle all year," Alesch said. "You have to be ready to go to war every match.  The fight is intense and the emotions are high."

He expects many of the matches to be close.

Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs is hosting the tournament this year, and the first round begins at 9:30 a.m. Friday. Finals are set for Saturday evening.

Fans can watch the event live online at FloWrestling at http://bit.ly/2hg8aEz by purchasing a subscription to its FloPro service. Live scoring and results are available for free at www.flowrestling.org/arena/event/515-2016-njcaa-wrestling-championships. Fans can also check out results by following Iowa Lakes Wrestling on Twitter.