Drexel Wrestling Ranked No. 24

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Drexel University wrestling team is enjoying a lot of success so far this season and people are noticing.

The Dragons are 6-1 after a strong showing at the Nebraska Duals where they beat Princeton and Michigan State, while losing to #7 Nebraska. The strong work by the Dragons has led to them entering the USA Today/NWCA Division I Coaches Poll for the first time in program history, coming in at #24 this week.

"The guys are wrestling well and there is a lot of excitement around the program and it's a good time to be a Dragon," Drexel head coach Matt Azevedo tells KYW Newsradio.

Listen to the entire interview with Drexel's Matt Azevedo:

Azevedo says this success is the culmination of a lot of hard work.

"When I took the program over five years ago, we recruited these kids with a vision," he says. "We said we believe we can be one of the top teams in the country and produce All-Americans and really have a strong presence within NCAA wrestling. This is my first recruiting class. Three of them are fifth-year seniors and we figured by their senior year we would have a squad that could really make some noise on the national scene and I think we're seeing that hard work pay off."

The Dragons will face two challenges this weekend. On Saturday, they will host Columbia at the DAC and then on Sunday they visit an outstanding Lehigh squad ranked 11th in the country.

"I'm expecting our guys to go out and do the same thing they've been doing the last three, four weeks," Azevedo says. "Wrestle hard, compete hard and fight to the end. We will be tested, these are two conference opponents, Columbia and Lehigh are both in our conference, the EIWA and Lehigh obviously is ranked #11 in the country. It will be a big test for our guys."

The Columbia match-up will actually be the home opener for Drexel. Matches Saturday start at 6:00pm.