The club wrestling team doesn’t fill Matthews Arena with screaming fans. But it can, unlike the men’s hockey or basketball team, boast three all-Americans, including one national champion and one runner-up, in the team’s best year since it began in the early 2000s.

“I think this year we’ve become a pretty strong team overall,” sophomore Sophia Veiras said. “Three all-Americans for the first time and first national champ and first runner-up, it really shows how much hard work we as a club team have been putting into this school.”

Northeastern sports teams are often required to find their success in the face of adversity, and the club wrestling team is no different. The team receives little, if any, funds from the athletics department.

Team members are also required to pay their own travel expenses with a combination of their own funds and team dues, Veiras said. The team’s dues are $100 a year.

The team also does not have professional coaches like varsity teams. Instead, the coaches for the wrestling team are student volunteers who have previously proven themselves talented enough to be able to coach others. Being students, the wrestling team’s coaches have to juggle the same staccato schedules as the other team members between homework, co-op and practice.

“We are completely student-run,” Veiras said. “[Northeastern] helps out pretty minimally, we kind of take care of ourselves for the most part.”

The team has faced problems with member retention. Interest tapered due to a lack of attention paid to the club and a lack of resources available, sophomore Joe DiSalvo said.

“I think as a team if we could maybe put out flyers or advertisements then we could get more people interested in club wrestling,” he said.

Practice space and time has also presented an issue for club wrestling, which only holds practice three days a week and uses part of the basketball court in Marino Fitness Center. Some other club teams practice up to five days a week and have access to a wrestling room, which DiSalvo said is a big advantage.

Despite these disadvantages, the team rallied to its best year ever following the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA) National Championships in Macon, Georgia on March 10.

At the national tournament, Veiras won her weight class to become a national champion. She competes in the 130-pound weight class and recorded her first collegiate victory this season and is the team’s first female competitor.

“We don’t really have a lot of girl’s teams in our conference,” Veiras said. “In the West there’s actually a lot of girl’s teams, but here it’s just me and this girl who wrestles for Amherst.”

DiSalvo took second place in the 235 weight class at the Georgia NCWA tournament. He is also the club wrestling team’s overall point leader with 84.50 points and has a record of 9-4 with five pins this season.

“With Division I through division III there is no 235 weight class, it jumps from 197 to 285,” DiSalvo said. “To me it means a lot, because it’s the only 235 weight class at the collegiate level.”

One of two coaches for the team, Josh Avery, is a four-year veteran of club wrestling and is in his final year of graduate study for physical therapy. He wrestled in two weight classes over his Northeastern career, first in 197 for his freshman and sophomore years then in 235 for his junior and senior years, and amassed a career record of 75-30.

“Up until my last couple years we had never had anyone place at nationals,” Avery said. “So it was really special to be able to go from kind of a small program that wasn’t really well known throughout the league to having three all-Americans, this including our first women’s competitor and our first women’s national champion. It was really special.”