The way Keith Gavin sees it, there’s a simple reason as to why Cole Matthews has been the best wrestler in his lineup over the past several weeks.

“He’s excited to wrestle, and I think that brings a higher level of focus for him,” Gavin said this week as his team – and Matthews – prepared for another highly ranked opponent.

Matthews was named the ACC Wrestler of the Week for the fifth time in his career after beating No. 5 Lachlan McNeil of North Carolina last week.

An NCAA All-American in 2022 who was ranked first nationally in 2023 before losing in the blood round, Matthews is just 12-9 this season, but his 6-2 victory over McNeil continued an upward arc in what has been a roller coaster of a season.

“I think he’s getting excited to wrestle,” Gavin said. “It sounds simple, but that’s a big piece to it. He’s beaten No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 this year. Those are bigger wins than he had last year.”

Matthews has also been scoring more points. Against McNeil, he used a second-period reversal and four backpoints for the victory.

“Cole’s been doing a better job of getting to positions that he likes to be in,” Gavin said. “When he does that, he controls the match really well.”

Matthews checks in at No. 15 in InterMat’s rankings – two slots behind Virginia Tech’s Tom Crook, who he beat twice last season.

While Matthews beating Crook for a third consecutive time wouldn’t qualify as much of an upset, the Panthers will need plenty of other underdogs to win in order to get a second consecutive win over the Hokies. Virginia Tech has 10 ranked wrestlers, including three in the top four – No. 4 Cooper Flynn (125), No. 2 Caleb Henson (149) and No. 2 Mekhi Lewis (174).

Last year, Camacho stunned Flynn with a first-period pin, but they’re headed in different directions this season. Flynn is 12-2 with seven consecutive wins; Camacho is 7-9 and has lost five straight and six of seven.

“He needs to focus on wrestling a complete match,” Gavin said of Camacho. “This should be a close match. This guy’s ranked high, but if Colton wrestles well, it should be a close match.”

Camacho lost 1-0 last week to North Carolina’s Spencer Moore, and things didn’t get much better from there for the Panthers in a 22-12 loss to North Carolina that drew a response from the normally stoic Gavin.

“We were upset with that performance. Not that UNC’s bad, but we lost some matches that I didn’t think we should have lost,” Gavin said. “That was probably the most disappointing dual that I’ve been a part of, certainly this year. Just the effort. At this point in the season, your effort shouldn’t be unpredictable. I – and as a coaching staff, we – have to address that. When you see that, the effort wasn’t there in the beginning.”

I asked Gavin how the staff went about doing that.

“I think we address it individually,” he said. “Three of the guys that lost who we felt like could have performed better are redshirt freshmen in Vinnie (Santaniello), Finn (Solomon) and Mac (Stout). Sometimes you have to grow through those. Hopefully, that’s the case.”

With the Hokies having the higher ranked wrestler in eight of the 10 weight classes – only brothers Holden and Reece Heller are favored for Pitt – there should be plenty of opportunities for growth on Friday night.

Gavin is hoping that his wrestlers learned from their subpar performance against North Carolina.

“You don’t try to do the match all at once,” he said. “(You should think) ‘I try to get to this position because this is where I like to be, and if that doesn’t work then I try to get to the next position.’ You break the match down like that. We were looking at the big picture too much, (thinking) ‘Now I’ve got to ride the guy out.’ No, you just have to break him down.”

Gavin has seen some encouraging signs for the biggest name who isn’t in the Pitt lineup. Dayton Pitzer, who is ranked 13th at heavyweight, is getting stronger in his return from a shoulder injury.

“He’s doing well. He’s going to start drilling soon and it’s probably another week or so before he can start hard wrestling,” Gavin said. “He’s getting his strength back. I know he’s excited.”

Gavin wants to see how Pitzer’s shoulder holds up to wrestling live in practice.

“It’s good he can wrestle live before ACCs so that he can really test it,” he said.

No. 12 Virginia Tech at No. 23 Pitt

7 p.m. Friday at Fitzgerald Field House

ACC Network Extra/ESPN+

125—No. 4 Cooper Flynn vs. Colton Camacho

133—No. 13 Sam Latona vs. No. 23 Vinnie Santaniello

141—No. 13 Tom Crook vs. No. 15 Cole Matthews

149—No. 2 Caleb Henson vs. No. 29 Finn Solomon

157—No. 9 Bryce Andonian vs. Jared Keslar

165—No. 21 Connor Brady vs. No. 13 Holden Heller

174—No. 2 Mekhi Lewis vs. No. 18 Luca Augustine

184—No. 21 Dakota Howard vs. No. 9 Reece Heller

197—No. 26 Andy Smith vs. No. 16 Mac Stout

285—No. 20 Hunter Catka vs. Geoff Magin