InterMat Staff

The 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Kansas City, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a city that hasn't hosted nationals since 2003 , but by all accounts, should be a great host. Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more. The Top Seed: Mekhi Lewis (Virginia Tech) It’s the most controversially seeded weight class of the tournament….174 lbs! What isn’t up for debate is who should have received the number one seed. Technically, the only unbeaten wrestler at this weight is Mekhi Lewis the 2019 NCAA champion, who just won his fourth ACC title. Lewis’ season had a couple-week interruption as he was injured during his unofficial All-Star bout against Carter Starocci. Once back in the lineup, Lewis was the consistent force that Hokie fans have come to know and love. Lewis may have benefited from the three-point takedown rule as his bonus point rate crept above 50% for the first time in his career. Five of his fifteen pre-NCAA bouts ended via tech fall. At the ACC Championships, Lewis claimed his fourth title by defeating Virginia’s Justin McCoy, 8-1. That was an improvement upon their dual meeting when he was only able to get away with a 2-0 win. There’s been a lot of discussion about the health of the other two NCAA champions in this bracket, Starocci and Shane Griffith. But bringing the talks back to Lewis, it appears as if he’s going into the national tournament healthier than any time since his national championship-winning performance in 2019. If the others are feeling the after-effects of their injuries and Lewis is relatively fresh, he should be the favorite to stand on top of the podium again on Saturday. The Contenders: #2 Cade Devos (South Dakota State), #3 Edmond Ruth (Illinois), #4 Shane Griffith (Michigan), #9 Carter Starocci (Penn State) The Conference Champions ACC: #1 Mekhi Lewis (Virginia Tech) Big 12: #2 Cade DeVos (South Dakota State) Big Ten: #3 Edmond Ruth (Illinois) EIWA: #7 Lennox Wolak (Columbia) MAC: #19 Alex Cramer (Central Michigan) Pac-12: #8 Adam Kemp (Cal Poly) SoCon: #11 Austin Murphy (Campbell) Top First-Round Matches #16 Jackson Turley (Rutgers) vs. #17 Max Maylor (Wisconsin) #8 Adam Kemp (Cal Poly) vs. #25 Brayden Thompson (Oklahoma State) #13 Justin McCoy (Virginia) vs. #20 Brody Conley (West Virginia) #11 Austin Murphy (Campbell) vs. #22 Peyton Mocco (Missouri) #10 Nick Incontrera (Penn) vs. #23 Luca Augustine (Pittsburgh) #15 MJ Gaitan (Iowa State) vs. #18 Ben Pasiuk (Army West Point) So, let’s get to it! The seeding at this weight class was certainly eye-opening. We knew since Starocci weighed in and injury defaulted out of both of his Big Ten matches, he would suffer from a seeding standpoint. Griffith also was injured at the end of his Big Ten semifinal and didn’t wrestle in the finals. What we didn’t know was that Starocci would get pushed all the way down to the ninth seed and Griffith had a more reasonable one - at four. The intention is to punish Starocci and not set a precedent that allows wrestlers to avoid the conference tournament and still get seeded as if nothing happened. It makes sense. But, putting Starocci at the number nine seed punishes Lewis probably moreso than Starocci - provided the Nittany Lion star is healthy. That’s the question though. Is Starocci healthy enough to win his fourth NCAA title? A follow-up may be, for a wrestler that was likely considered the best pound-for-pound in the nation, at what percentage could he be and still win? It’s almost as if Starocci can pick back up where he left off. His first match will be against Minnesota’s Andrew Sparks, the same opponent that Starocci injury defaulted against in the Big Ten quarterfinals. I’m sure it’s on Starocci’s mind that Sparks was across the mat from him when his 63-match winning streak came to an end. Griffith is also on the same half of the bracket and could face a Lewis/Starocci winner in the semifinals. Of course, that is health pending on all parties. Griffith is in his final year of eligibility after spending his first five years at Stanford. During his time with the Cardinal, Griffith made the NCAA podium on three occasions, including his incredible run in 2021 that preceded the reversal of the elimination of wrestling and 11 other sports. The bottom half of the bracket features Big 12 champion Cade DeVos as the second seed and Edmond Ruth as the third. DeVos comes in with a sparkling 21-1 record, with his only loss coming to Griffith. Though he’s yet to AA in his career, DeVos proved he was a contender at this weight by winning the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. There he downed a pair of All-Americans (who are now injured and unable to compete). Ruth made his first appearance at nationals last year and came up a match shy of placing. This year he’s been excellent with a Midlands title and only one loss against an opponent in this field (Patrick Kennedy). Before receiving a forfeit in the Big Ten finals from Griffith, Ruth outlasted Sparks and Ohio State freshman Rocco Welsh in a pair of sudden victory contests. Welsh is in Ruth’s quarter as the sixth seed. He was pulled from redshirt after a season-ending injury to Carson Kharchla and looked the part from day one. Welsh’s only losses on the year have been extremely close decisions to Ruth, Griffith, and Starocci. Also on the bottom half of the bracket is EIWA champion Lennox Wolak. Wolak, a qualifier in 2023, took it to another level this year with bonus points in three of his four conference championship bouts. He could potentially meet Ivy League opponents in his first two NCAA matches. Going into the EIWA Tournament, Phil Conigliaro was considered the conference favorite. He had only lost once in the regular season. Conigliaro ended up in fourth place after a pair of losses to Cornell’s Benny Baker. Those didn’t necessarily hurt Conigliaro in the seeding process, as he’s the number five. Darkhorse All-American Candidate: #12 Patrick Kennedy (Iowa) We’re not exactly going out on a limb here! Picking a 12th seed to get on the podium isn’t exactly an earth-shattering prediction. I do like the Round of 12 matchup with Kennedy and Conigliaro, then Kennedy to take advantage of a likely-limited Griffith and make the semifinals. Last year, Kennedy was a Big Ten runner-up and the sixth seed, but did not place partially because of upsets that happened around him, which loaded the consolations. If you want a bit more of a risky prediction, we have #14 Justin McCoy on the podium, too. He’ll likely have to go through some of the heavy hitters from the Ivy League to crack the top eight. Extreme (20+) Darkhorse All-American Contender: #25 Brayden Thompson (Oklahoma State) In some weights, it can be difficult to find a 20+ seed or two that can do damage. That’s not the case here - there are quite a few. We’ll go with the true freshman wrestling in his first national tournament, Brayden Thompson. Thompson opens his tournament with Pac-12 champion Adam Kemp, who is seeded eighth. Kemp is a veteran that hasn’t really hit many of the top competitors this year, so it's difficult to gauge how he stacks up against contenders. Thompson has had his moments during a 12-9 season. He wrestled back for third place at the Big 12 Championships and during the regular season, Thompson downed returning All-American Peyton Mocco in sudden victory. The opening-round matchup with Kemp is winnable for Thompson; however, even if he loses, I like his possible consolation path. The Team Race: There’s a lot of variance at this weight and it certainly has an impact on the team race. A title from Lewis, combined with his teammates' performances, could push Virginia Tech into that trophy neighborhood. If Griffith is close to 100%, he could place anywhere from first to third. If not, he could struggle to place. That’s a wide range of options for a Michigan team squarely in the trophy hunt. Though Kennedy is seeded 12th, he has a good show at the podium, which is surely to help Iowa improve upon their 9th place finish (based on seeds). Projected Quarterfinals #1 Mekhi Lewis (Virginia Tech) vs. #9 Carter Starocci (Penn State) #12 Patrick Kennedy (Iowa) vs. #4 Shane Griffith (Michigan) #3 Edmond Ruth (Ilinois) vs. #6 Rocco Welsh (Ohio State) #7 Lennox Wolak (Columbia) vs. #2 Cade DeVos (South Dakota State) Projected Semifinals #9 Carter Starocci (Penn State) vs. #12 Patrick Kennedy (Iowa) #6 Rocco Welsh (Ohio State) vs. #2 Cade DeVos (South Dakota State) Projected All-Americans 1st: Carter Starocci (Penn State) 2nd: Rocco Welsh (Ohio State) 3rd: Mekhi Lewis (Virginia Tech) 4th: Patrick Kennedy (Iowa) 5th: Cade DeVos (South Dakota State) 6th: Edmond Ruth (Illinois) 7th: Justin McCoy (Virginia) 8th: Shane Griffith (Michigan) Projected Round of 12 Finishers: #8 Adam Kemp (Cal Poly), #14 Gaven Sax (North Dakota State), #7 Lennox Wolak (Columbia), #25 Brayden Thompson (Oklahoma State) Projected Consolation Round of 16 Finishers: #15 MJ Gaitan (Iowa State), #22 Peyton Mocco (Missouri), #5 Phil Conigliaro (Harvard), #16 Jackson Turley (Rutgers)

The NCAA Division I wrestling tournament kicks off on Thursday morning. Fans who did not take the day off from work will likely be tuning in to ESPN from their work computer or their phone. In the NCAA tournament, there are very few easy matches, and that is certainly true this year. The following looks at some of the toughest and most interesting matches from the first round of the event. 125: Noah Surtin (Missouri) vs. Stevo Poulin (Northern Colorado) Both of these wrestlers have accomplished a lot during their time in college wrestling, and at times they have both found themselves much higher in the rankings. Both took some uncharacteristic losses at the Big 12 tournament. Now, Surtin enters the field as the 13th seed, while Poulin comes in at 20th. Despite Surtin having the edge in terms of seeding, Poulin has won their only previous meeting. They faced off at the 2023 Big 12 tournament, and Poulin won a commanding 11-4 decision. This could easily be a first-round upset, but the winner likely only earns themselves a match against the returning NCAA finalist from Purdue Matt Ramos. 133: Julian Farber (Northern Iowa) vs. Jacob Van Dee (Nebraska) As a redshirt freshman, Van Dee went 22-8 and earned a spot in the NCAA tournament via the brutal Big Ten field. He was awarded the 14th seed, but at the same time, that seed left him with a less-than-desirable opponent. Farber enters as the 19th seed, but he holds not one, but two victories over Van Dee this season. Their first meeting came at the Cliff Keen Invitational where Farber won 9-5. About a month later, they faced off again in a dual. This time, Farber widened the gap and took an 8-1 decision victory. 141: Mitch Moore (Rutgers) vs. Cole Matthews (Pittsburgh) Matthews finished fifth in the 2022 NCAA tournament and was one of the top wrestlers in the country a season ago before dropping a pair of matches in tiebreakers and failing to reach the All-American podium. This year, he took his fair share of losses and now enters the NCAA tournament as the 18th seed with a 16-10 record. Despite this, he remains a tough out. In the first round, he will face off against Moore. The Rutgers wrestler is in his sixth year of collegiate wrestling and competing for his third different school. The two met back during the 2020 season. Moore, representing Virginia Tech at the time, hung with Matthews throughout the contest, but the Pittsburgh wrestler took a 4-2 victory. This could easily turn into a low-scoring grind that could end up being settled in overtime. The winner will likely earn a chance to try to upset Penn State’s Beau Bartlett in the second round. 149: Tyler Kasak (Penn State) vs. Jaden Abas (Stanford) Penn State’s lineup depth was on display once again this season. After an injury forced Shayne Van Ness out of action, Kasak stepped into the role as a true freshman. While some might not have expected much from him, he stepped up throughout the year and ended up finishing third at the Big Ten tournament with a fall over Ethen Miller (Maryland) in the third-place match. He now gets the chance to take another step forward at the NCAA tournament. Despite earning the seventh seed, he faces a solid test in his opening match. Abas was an All-American back in 2021 and is now a four-time NCAA qualifier. Kasak’s performance here will say a lot about his prospects of reaching All-American status. 157: Will Lewan (Michigan) vs. Chase Saldate (Michigan State) Lewan and Saldate have wrestled five times in their collegiate careers, but they have not wrestled so far this season. Both of their matches during the 2023 season went to overtime with Saldate picking up his only win in the five-match series. Do not be surprised if this match ends up in overtime once again. While at Michigan, Lewan has been in 23 matches that ended in sudden victory and another 10 that were decided in tiebreakers. Lewan is the clear favorite, but this one might be close until the final whistle. 165: Joseph Bianchi (Little Rock) vs. Hunter Garvin (Stanford) It would be fair to say that the selection committee and process goes out of their way to appear objective, even when it comes at the expense of common sense. This match appears to be a pretty solid example of just that. Bianchi was a key element of the upstart Little Rock squad that had an extremely impressive season and put head coach Neil Erisman firmly in the discussion for Coach of the Year. Bianchi went 23-6 and won the Pac-12 championship. That campaign was enough to earn him the 13th seed. Unfortunately, his first-round opponent will be Stanford’s Hunter Garvin who Bianchi defeated in the Pac-12 final by a 2-1 score. Fans should be excited to see a high-quality match right out of the gate, but it would have been an easy and defensible decision to separate conference finalists. 174: Carter Starocci (Penn State) vs. Andrew Sparks (Minnesota) Starocci was the undisputed favorite at 174 pounds heading into this season, and there were not many results that would leave fans feeling differently. However, he suffered a knee injury in a late-season match against Joey Arnold of Edinboro. Starocci ended up not actually wrestling at the Big Ten tournament, where he dropped a pair of injury defaults. That performance dropped him from the clear top seed all the way to ninth. If he is right, he should still be the favorite. We should get a pretty clear answer to his health status right off the bat. Sparks has never wrestled Starocci in college, but he is a solid veteran who can give the Penn State rep a test if he is diminished due to injury. 184: Aaron Ayzerov (Columbia) vs. Jacob Nolan (Binghamton) Columbia will depart the EIWA next season along with the rest of the Ivy League schools, but for this one last season, this will be an in-conference match. Despite that, Ayzerov and Nolan did not wrestle this season. The Columbia wrestler upset Cornell’s Chris Foca in the semifinals and ended up winning the tournament. Nolan, on the other hand, lost to Foca in the consolation semifinals and finished sixth. Despite the higher finish and entering the NCAA tournament as the higher seed, Ayzerov lost the only match between these two. They faced off in the EIWA tournament last year, and Nolan won a 4-2 match. Ayzerov enters this tournament with a lot of momentum, but he will need to reverse a result from last season to continue his hot streak. 197: Mac Stout (Pittsburgh) vs. Rocky Elam (Missouri) Elam has placed in the top five at the last three NCAA tournaments. He wrestled somewhat sparingly this season and entered this tournament with only 14 matches on his season record. He made the finals of the Big 12 tournament but dropped a 1-0 match against South Dakota State’s Tanner Sloan. He might be in for another defensive match in his first-round contest here. Stout is a physically strong and impressive athlete who has kept some high scorers off the scoreboard this season. Elam will likely want to get off to a strong start with hopes of improving on his third-place finish last year, but that might be tough here against Stout. 285: Cohlton Schultz (Arizona State) vs. Nash Hutmacher (Nebraska) A bout between one of the country’s best Greco wrestlers and a Big Ten-caliber defensive lineman seems like the type of fantasy booking one would see on the undercard of a Jake Paul boxing match. However, wrestling fans will get it in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Hutmacher has had his ups and downs since returning to his wrestling roots this season, but his physical ability is certainly evident. Schultz took a break in the middle of the college season to qualify 130 kg for the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games. Points might be at a premium in this one, but neither wrestler will give an inch.

The 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Kansas City, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a city that hasn't hosted nationals since 2003 , but by all accounts, should be a great host. Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more. The Top Seed: Keegan O’Toole (Missouri) This is the weight class that most wrestling fans have anticipated all year long. Last season, we were treated to a trilogy of matches between returning national champions Keegan O’Toole and David Carr. O’Toole, now famously, dropped both their dual meeting and Big 12 final before prevailing when it counted in the national finals. In doing so, O’Toole locked up back-to-back national titles at 165 lbs. This year has been and will be different between the two. An illness ran its way through the Mizzou team and forced multiple team members, including O’Toole, to sit out of their dual with Iowa State. At the Big 12 Championships, it was O’Toole who got the best of Carr. Now, with O’Toole as the top seed and Carr as the number four, they are slated to meet in Friday night’s semifinals rather than the finals. While that isn’t ideal, there are plenty of intriguing storylines at this weight, which we’ll get to later. O’Toole’s win over Carr and the top seed at nationals also has put him in contention for the 2024 Hodge Trophy. He heads into Kansas City with a perfect 19-0 record and bonus points in almost 75% of his matches. Even for the high-scoring O’Toole, that figure would represent a career-high. O’Toole tallied those numbers on the strength of seven falls and four tech falls. O’Toole starts this final stretch towards his third nation title with an 83-3 career record. Two of those losses came to Carr last season and only one occurred during an NCAA Championship event. Oftentimes, people are quick to label the Big Ten as the best up-and-down the brackets; however, O’Toole’s Big 12 bracket was deeper and contained three returning All-Americans, in addition to O’Toole. In 2023-24, O’Toole went a combined 4-0 against those past AA’s and even bumped up to defeat the eventual Big Ten champion, Edmond Ruth. The Contenders: #2 Mitchell Mesenbrink (Penn State), #3 Julian Ramirez (Cornell), #4 David Carr (Iowa State) The Conference Champions ACC: #30 Nick Hamilton (Virginia) Big 12: #1 Keegan O’Toole (Missouri) Big Ten: #2 Mitchell Mesenbrink (Penn State) EIWA: #3 Julian Ramirez (Cornell) MAC: #29 Evan Maag (George Mason) Pac-12: #13 Joey Bianchi (Little Rock) SoCon: #16 Will Miller (Appalachian State) Top First-Round Matches #16 Will Miller (Appalachian State) vs. #17 Tyler Lillard (Indiana) #12 Garrett Thompson (Ohio) vs. #21 Caleb Fish (Michigan State) #11 Andrew Cerniglia (Navy) vs. #22 Noah Mulvaney (Bucknell) #10 Cam Amine (Michigan) vs. #23 Derek Fields (NC State) #15 Brevin Cassella (Binghamton) vs. #18 Connor Brady (Virginia Tech) So we can’t have that NCAA finals rematch that most wanted between O’Toole and Carr; however, a new challenger has emerged and makes for some fun storylines. The second seed belongs to Mitchell Mesenbrink, a redshirt freshman for Penn State. Like O’Toole, Mesenbrink is a product of Askren Wrestling Academy and Arrowhead High School in Wisconsin. Could we see an NCAA final between two high school and club teammates? Mesenbrink secured the second seed after his wild win over returning Big Ten champion Dean Hamiti. In the early going, Hamiti appeared to be on track to handing Mesenbrink his first collegiate loss. Mesenbrink was not flustered and kept the pressure on and won 13-11. Something to monitor is that Hamiti appeared to leave the mat with a pronounced limp. The top half of the bracket could see Hamiti and Carr meeting in the quarterfinals, as Hamiti now has the fifth seed. The pair met early in the season and Carr took the 2-0 win largely on the strength of his mat wrestling. That loss was the only other one on the year for Hamiti. Carr has the fourth seed in large part because of a Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational semifinal loss to Julian Ramirez. That defeat was Carr’s first at a regular season event since December of 2019 (Also the CKLV semis). After Vegas, Carr won 13 straight bouts and earned bonus points in ten of those contests. In addition to Mesenbrink, the bottom half of the bracket contains Ramirez as the third seed. Ramirez went on to take second at the CKLV, after beating Carr, as he fell to Izzak Olejnik in the finals. Ramirez recently won his second straight EIWA crown in a solid weight class that featured six eventual national qualifiers. Olejnik is also on the bottom half of the bracket as the seventh seed. He started the year red-hot with 16 straight wins; however, he took some lumps when it came to the conference dual meet portion of the season. West Virginia’s Peyton Hall (the #9th seed) handed him his first loss of the year and a few weeks later he was beaten by Carr and O’Toole. At the Big 12 meet, Olejnik got some semblance of revenge when he defeated Hall for third place. Other returning All-Americans on the bottom half of the bracket are #6 Michael Caliendo and #10 Cam Amine. The pair met twice at the Big Ten Championships and both matches needed sudden victory, and in both instances, Caliendo prevailed. Amine is a three-time All-American who missed significant time this season, but may be rounding into form at the right time. Caliendo AA’ed last year for North Dakota State, but hasn’t missed a beat after moving to Iowa. A good second-round match to watch on the top portion of the bracket is the #8/#9 bout between Hall and Antrell Taylor. The freshman from Nebraska finished fifth in the Big Ten and has a win over Amine on his resume. The winner of this bout is set up well to get on the podium, while the loser may have to pull a big upset to crack the top-eight. Darkhorse All-American Candidate: #11 Andrew Cerniglia (Navy) Andrew Cerniglia came to the Naval Academy as one of the top-25 recruits in the Class of 2020. Unfortunately, two of his previous three seasons have been disrupted by injury and he was unable to consistently show the talent that made him so highly regarded. 2023-24 was a welcome change as Cerniglia was able to get on the mat for 27 matches prior to the national tournament. Generally in good health, Cerniglia was very good, making the EIWA finals and pushing Ramirez before falling 5-3. Once the calendar flipped over to 2024, Cerniglia started the year with 13 straight wins. He’ll enter Kansas City with a 22-5 record; one of his losses came via injury default in the second week of the season. With the way Cerniglia is wrestling and the way the brackets could end up breaking, I think there’s a good chance he advanced to the Round of 12. Extreme (20+) Darkhorse All-American Contender: #21 Caleb Fish (Michigan State) One of the surprises in last year’s tournament was Caleb Fish. As the 29th seed, Fish knocked off the fourth seed, EIWA champion Julian Ramirez, in the opening round. He advanced to the quarterfinals after a slightly lesser upset, over #20 Holden Heller. Even with Fish having to rely on an at-large berth to qualify this season, we’re not getting fooled again. Especially considering Fish has a win this season over his first opponent, #12 Garrett Thompson of Ohio. Should Fish get another first-round victory, there’s a decent path for him to make the bloodround, again. The Team Race: The team race implications at this weight aren’t as strong as other weights, but there are still some intriguing points to consider. All year, Missouri has been considered a trophy threat; however, they were fourth at the Big 12 meet and tailed off in the regular season. A title from O’Toole, with a couple of bonus point wins thrown in for good measure, could be a great starting point for the Tigers. I’d keep an eye on that potential three versus six quarterfinal with Ramirez and Caliendo. That’s a guaranteed top-six finish for the winning team. Also, wrestlers like Olejnik, Taylor, and Amine are not necessarily locks for the podium, so getting there would be a plus for their respective squads. Projected Quarterfinals #1 Keegan O’Toole (Missouri) vs. #8 Antrell Taylor (Nebraska) #5 Dean Hamiti (Wisconsin) vs. #4 David Carr (Iowa State) #3 Julian Ramirez (Cornell) vs. #6 Michael Caliendo (Iowa) #7 Izzak Olejnik (Oklahoma State) vs. #2 Mitchell Mesenbrink (Penn State) Projected Semifinals #1 Keegan O’Toole (Missouri) vs. #4 David Carr (Iowa State) #6 Michael Caliendo (Iowa) vs. #2 Mitchell Mesenbrink (Penn State) Projected All-Americans 1st: Keegan O’Toole (Missouri) 2nd: Mitchell Mesenbrink (Penn State) 3rd: David Carr (Iowa State) 4th: Dean Hamiti (Wisconsin) 5th: Michael Caliendo (Iowa) 6th: Izzak Olejnik (Oklahoma State) 7th: Julian Ramirez (Cornell) 8th: Antrell Taylor (Nebraska) Projected Round of 12 Finishers: #10 Cam Amine (Michigan), #11 Andrew Cerniglia (Navy), #21 Caleb Fish (Michigan State), #9 Peyton Hall (West Virginia) Projected Consolation Round of 16 Finishers: #16 Will Miller (Appalachian State), #19 Gunner Filipowicz (Army West Point), #14 Giano Petrucelli (Air Force), #15 Brevin Cassella (Binghamton)

The 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Kansas City, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a city that hasn't hosted nationals since 2003 , but by all accounts, should be a great host. Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more. The Top Seed: Levi Haines (Penn State) The 2023 NCAA Freshman of the Year, Levi Haines, picked up right where he left off in 2022-23. As a true freshman, Haines knocked off unbeaten top-ranked Peyton Robb to claim a Big Ten title. A few weeks later, he beat Robb for a second time to earn a berth in the national finals. Haines would end up coming up short to two-time national champion Austin O’Connor; however, he was the only freshman to make it to the 2023 finals. That loss to O’Connor is the most recent blemish on the record for Haines. He navigated through a tough schedule that included five wins over three past All-Americans without a setback. Along the way, Haines managed to bump his bonus point total up over 60% after getting additional points in only 34% of his matches as a freshman. While Haines has been able to rack up points more easily this season, he’s still been able to grind out some close wins. In the Big Ten finals, Haines was able to register a takedown on the stingy Will Lewan to get his second conference crown in as many tries. Earlier in the Big Ten dual schedule, Haines was able to survive a bout that went to tiebreakers with Chase Saldate. The 157 lb bracket is absolutely loaded! There are potential hurdles all over the place. Though Haines has earned the top seed at this weight, he still has a very difficult route to his first national title. In his second bout, he has the potential to hit three-time NCAA All-American Brock Mauller. The quarterfinals could feature a bout against one of two multiple-time All-Americans, Robb and Lewan. Each has pushed Haines into extra time. The Contenders: #2 Jacori Teemer (Arizona State), #3 Meyer Shapiro (Cornell)...the top 14 seeds? The Conference Champions ACC: #4 Ed Scott (NC State) Big 12: #5 Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa) Big Ten: #1 Levi Haines (Penn State) EIWA: #3 Meyer Shapiro (Cornell) MAC: #7 Peyten Kellar (Ohio) Pac-12: #2 Jacori Teemer (Arizona State) SoCon: #19 Tommy Askey (Appalachian State) Top First-Round Matches #16 Teague Travis (Oklahoma State) vs. #17 Brock Mauller (Missouri) #9 Will Lewan (Michigan) vs. #24 Chase Saldate (Michigan State) #14 Cody Chittum (Iowa State) vs. #19 Tommy Askey (Appalachian State) #10 Jared Franek (Iowa) vs. #23 Joey Blaze (Purdue) #15 Cael Swensen (South Dakota State) vs. #18 Vince Zerban (Northern Colorado) 157 lbs has been my favorite weight class to follow all year. While Haines is undefeated and the top seed, there are plenty of quality competitors who could defeat him or prevail in a tournament setting. The weight features five multi-time All-Americans and five other AA’s. In addition, there are three talented freshmen within the top-15 seeds. Plus the talent has been dispersed relatively evenly. Each of the five seeds come from five different conferences. As mentioned above, the top quarterfinal includes Haines, Brock Mauller, Peyton Robb, and Will Lewan. Not to mention, Chase Saldate and Trevor Chumbley, both of which have made it to at least the consolation Round of 16 at nationals. The second quarterfinal on the top half of the bracket is headlined by Ed Scott, the fourth seed. Scott could have a ridiculously difficult second-round match with an opponent that was ranked in the top four for most of the season. Michael Blockhus was pinned in his first match at the Big Ten Championships by Lewan and ended up defaulting out of the tournament and was punished with the 13th seed. The winner of that bout could have a quarterfinal bout with the winner of Bryce Andonian and Ryder Downey. The electric Andonian was injured in early-January and returned for the ACC Tournament, but didn’t appear to be close to 100%. Downey emerged victorious in a brutal Big 12 weight class after a marathon conference championship win over Cody Chittum. And we still have the bottom half of the bracket. Speaking of Chittum, he could be in line for a second-round matchup will fellow freshman Meyer Shapiro. The two were expected to meet at the Collegiate Duals, but Shapiro was held out of the dual. The U17 and U20 world champion lost twice at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational and hasn’t been beaten since. The winner of the potential Chittum/Shapiro matchup will have to contend with the winner of Brayton Lee and Daniel Cardenas in the quarterfinals. Lee competed sparingly during the regular season, but has looked close to the wrestler that earned All-American honors in 2021 as he finished fifth in the Big Ten. Cardenas was fifth in Vegas and a runner-up at the Southern Scuffle this year. The final quarterfinal features the second-seeded Jacori Teemer, who has multiple wins over Cardenas and was a Midlands champion. He’d have the winner of Cael Swensen and Vince Zerban in the second round. Zerban was ranked second in the nation during the regular season and was undefeated heading into the Big 12 Championships. The other quadrant on the bottom half of the bracket features MAC champion Peyten Kellar and 2023 All-American Jared Franek. Like Shapiro, Kellar’s only two losses on the year came in Vegas. He’s on a 14-match winning streak. Franek was fourth in the nation last year and fourth in the Big Ten during his only year with Iowa. Darkhorse All-American Candidate: #16 Teague Travis (Oklahoma State) Coming into the year, it appeared as if there may be a hole at 157 lbs for Oklahoma State. It took a month and seven matches at 149 lbs, but Teague Travis grabbed a hold of the starting role at 157 and never looked back. Travis won his first seven matches at his new weight class, including one over NC State’s returning All-American Ed Scott. In early February, Travis downed his former high school teammate, Mauller. Now, Travis and Mauller are set to square off in the first round in Kansas City. However it shakes out, Travis is capable of a good run, even at a weight class this deep. Extreme (20+) Darkhorse All-American Contender: #24 Chase Saldate (Michigan State) Only in a weight class this deep will you find a two-time top-five finisher in the Big Ten and a returning NCAA Round of 12 finisher at the 24th seed. Chase Saldate isn’t your typical 24th seed. In the first round, Saldate will have a familiar opponent, Lewan. This will be the sixth career meeting between the two. Saldate does have one win over Lewan, so he probably feels better than most 24th seeds in the opening round. Even if Lewan continues with a win, the consolations seem to favor another good run from Saldate. Team Race: Could this be perhaps the most pivotal weight in the team race? You have proven All-Americans that have been ranked in the top-three like, like Robb and Franek, seeded at eight and ten respectively. There’s a reason for those seeds, but frankly, both are capable of significantly outwrestling those seeds. On their best day, each could win. Getting finalist points from someone seeded eighth or tenth is a huge boost to those teams in search of a trophy. A match that we already described, Chittum/Shapiro in the Round of 16 - one of those wrestlers is just a match away from placing, and the loser will have to win multiple matches before dealing with a quarterfinal loser, just to get on the podium. Fortunes at this weight could shift so quickly or radically, based on how that bracket breaks on Thursday and Friday. Some projected matches to watch include a Franek/Teemer quarterfinal or a Shapiro/Teemer semifinal. All include wrestlers with teams expected to be in the hunt. Projected Quarterfinals #1 Levi Haines (Penn State) vs. #8 Peyton Robb (Nebraska) #5 Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa) vs. #13 Michael Blockhus (Minnesota) #3 Meyer Shapiro (Cornell) vs. #11 Brayton Lee (Indiana) #10 Jared Franek (Iowa) vs. #2 Jacori Teemer (Arizona State) Projected Semifinals #1 Levi Haines (Penn State) vs. #5 Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa) #3 Meyer Shapiro (Cornell) vs. #2 Jacori Teemer (Arizona State) Projected All-Americans 1st: Meyer Shapiro (Cornell) 2nd: Levi Haines (Penn State) 3rd: Jacori Teemer (Arizona State) 4th: Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa) 5th: Jared Franek (Iowa) 6th: Michael Blockhus (Minnesota) 7th: Peyton Robb (Nebraska) 8th: Will Lewan (Michigan) Projected Round of 12 Finishers: #16 Teague Travis (Oklahoma State), #14 Cody Chittum (Iowa State), #4 Ed Scott (NC State), #11 Brayton Lee (Indiana) Projected Consolation Round of 16 Finishers: #24 Chase Saldate (Michigan), #6 Daniel Cardenas (Stanford), #12 Bryce Andonian (Virginia Tech), #17 Brock Mauller (Missouri)

Team Scores 1. Augsburg 95 2. Wartburg 87.5 3. Wisconsin-La Crosse 82.5 4. Johnson and Wales 76 5. Wisconsin-Eau Claire 69 6. Baldwin Wallace 61 7. US Coast Guard Academy 52.5 8. North Central 42.5 9. College of New Jersey 37 10. Loras 34 Championship Finals 125 - Joziah Fry (Johnson and Wales) maj Christian Guzman (North Central) 18-8 133 - Chase Randall (US Coast Guard Academy) fall Jaden Hinton (Baldwin Wallace) 5:52 141 - Josh Wilson (Greensboro) dec Jacob Reed (Ohio Northern) 4-2 149 - Michael Petrella (Baldwin Wallace) fall Tyler Goebel (Wisconsin-La Crosse) 4:19 157 - Nolan Hertel (Wisconsin-LaCrosse) dec Peter Kane (Williams) 4-2 165 - Nicholas Sacco (College of New Jersey) dec Noah Leisgang (Wisconsin-La Crosse) 2-1 174 - Jared Stricker (Wisconsin-Eau Claire) dec Zane Mulder (Wartburg) 10-3 184 - Bentley Schwanebeck-Ostermann (Augsburg) tech Ryan DeVivo (Johnson and Wales) 19-2 197 - Massoma Endene (Wartburg) maj Gabriel Zierden (Concordia-Moorhead) 12-4 285 - Tyler Kim (Augsburg) dec Michael Douglas (Wisconsin-La Crosse) 4-2 Third Place Bouts 125 - James Day (Wabash) dec Jacob Decatur (Baldwin Wallace) 1-0 133 - Joe Pins (Wartburg) fall Robbie Precin (North Central) 3:27 141 - Mark Samuel (Roanoke) dec Josiah Gehr (Messiah) 10-7SV 149 - Charlie Dojan (Wartburg) dec Eric Kinkaid (Loras) 7-2 157 - Cooper Pontelandolfo (NYU) dec Clayton McDonough (Luther) 7-3 165 - Matt Lackman (Alvernia) dec Tristan Massie (Wisconsin-Eau Claire) 4-2 174 - Zeb Gnida (Loras) dec Jason Geyer (NYU) 7-2 184 - Niall Schoenfelder (Wisconsin-Eau Claire) maj Sampson Wilkins (Castleton) 11-2 197 - Montgomery Mills (Westminster) fall Cameron Butka (Wilkes) 1:44 285 - Carl DiGiorgio (US Coast Guard Academy) dec Robby Bates (North Central) 5-2 Fifth Place Bouts 125 - Mason Barrett (Averett) dec Zac Blasioli (Millikin) 4-2 133 - Jacob Blair (Delaware Valley) dec Dominik Mallinder (Wisconsin-Whitewater) 4-1 141 - Kyler Romero (Wartburg) dec Victor Perlleshi (Johnston and Wales) 12-11 149 - Zach Sato (Wisconsin-Eau Claire) tech Colby Frost (Southern Maine) 15-0 157 - Blake Jagodzinske (Augsburg) dec Ryan Smith (Stevens) 8-5 165 - Cooper Willis (Augsburg) dec Will Esmoil (Cole) 7-5 174 - Charlie Grygas (Oswego State) dec Dejon Glaster (Millikin) 7-3 184 - Sean Malenfant (Alfred State) maj Dylan Wellbaum (Adrian) 10-1 197 - Dylan Harr (Johnson and Wales) dec Coy Spooner (US Coast Guard Academy) 3-1 285 - Rayshawn Dixon (Ferrum) dec Dylan Waller (Elizabethtown) 3-2TB Seventh Place Bouts 125 - Gavin Bradley (Castleton) dec Mac Cafurello (Roanoke) 7-4 133 - Isaias Torres (Ithaca) fall Desmond Diggs (Mount St. Joseph) 3:54 141 - Alex Samson (St. John Fisher) dec Ethan Pogorzelski (Wisconsin-Whitewater) 4-2 149 - Michael Conklin (College of New Jersey) dec Mike Glynn (RIT) 6-3 157 - Gabriel Smith (Cornell) dec Xavier Howard (McDaniel) 9-6 165 - Dustin Bohren (Loras) dec Patrick Wisniewski (Johnson and Wales) 9-6 174 - Seth Goetzinger (Augsburg) fall Stefan Major (Stevens) 4:26 184 - Jack Ryan (Oneonta State) maj Max Borton (Ursinus) 8-0 197 - Parker Venz (Augsburg) fall Ben Kawczynski (Wisconsin-La Crosse) :59 285 - Walter West (Luther) maj Peter Wersinger (College of New Jersey) 9-0

Team Scores 1. Central Oklahoma 110 2. Lander 86.5 3. Nebraska-Kearney 77.5 4. McKendree 73 5. St. Cloud State 64 6. Pitt-Johnstown 45 7. Wisconsin-Parkside 41 8. Augustana 40.5 9. Indianapolis 37.5 10. Adams State 33.5 Championship Finals 125 - Christian Mejia (McKendree) dec Jaxson Rohman (Augustana) 5-2 133 - Gabe Hixenbaugh (Montevallo) dec Gavin Quiocho (Glenville State) 4-1 141 - Zack Donathan (Tiffin) maj Nick James (Nebraska-Kearney) 13-3 149 - Jacob Ealy (Pitt-Johnstown) dec Cody Thompson (Colorado School of Mines) 12-7 157 - Gabe Johnson (Central Oklahoma) dec Nick Novak (St. Cloud State) 10-7 165 - David Hunsberger (Lander) dec Chase Luensman (Upper Iowa) 8-6 174 - Josh Kenny (Grand Valley State) fall Anthony DesVigne (Central Oklahoma) 4:47 184 - Ty McGeary (West Liberty) maj Matt Weinberg (Kutztown) 9-1 197 - Derek Blubaugh (Indianapolis) dec Dalton Abney (Central Oklahoma) 5-1 285 - Shawn Streck (Central Oklahoma) dec Juan Edmond-Holmes (Lander) 7-4 Third Place Bouts 125 - James Joplin (Lander) dec Isaiah Gamez (Adams State) 4-3 133 - Devin Flannery (Millersville) dec Reece Barnhardt (Mary) 9-4 141 - Ronan Schuelke (McKendree) maj Angel Flores (Adams State) 11-2 149 - Colby Njos (St. Cloud State) dec Dylan Brown (Central Oklahoma) 3-1 157 - Guy DeLeonardis (Glenville State) dec Jack Haskin (Lake Erie) 8-1 165 - Hunter Jump (Central Oklahoma) dec Cory Peterson (McKendree) 4-1SV 174 - Scott Joll (UNC Pembroke) maj Seth Brossard (Northern State) 16-3 184 - Billy Higgins (Nebraska-Kearney) dec Reece Worachek (Wisconsin-Parkside) 7-3 197 - Logan Kvien (McKendree) dec Jackson Kinsella (Nebraska-Kearney) 2-0 285 - Crew Howard (Nebraska-Kearney) dec La’Ron Parks (Notre Dame) 4-0 Fifth Place Bouts 125 - Zachary Ourada (Nebraska-Kearney) dec Shane Corrigan (Wisconsin-Parkside) 5-3 133 - Jeremiah Echevarria (Gannon) Maj Elijah Lusk (Lander) 13-2 141 - Tate Murty (Upper Iowa) maj Jake Niffenegger (Mercyhurst) 9-0 149 - Zeth Brower (Lander) maj Jalen Spuhler (Wisconsin-Parkside) 17-5 157 - Devin Bahr (Northern State) fall Keegan Roberson (UNC Pembroke) 2:25 165 - Cole Ritter (Maryville) maj Nicholas Coreno (Gannon) 15-2 174 - Trey Sizemore (Indianapolis) maj Brody Hemauer (Wisconsin-Parkside) 11-3 184 - Damon Ashworth (Central Missouri) maj Garrett Wells (Central Oklahoma) 11-3 197 - Dominic Murphy (St. Cloud State) maj Max Ramberg (Augustana) 14-4 285 - Isaiah Vance (Pitt-Johnstown) maj Zach Peterson (Augustana) 8-0 Seventh Place Bouts 125 - Trevon Gray (Pitt-Johnstown) dec Manuel Leija (Davenport) 7-2 133 - Ryan Ripplinger (McKendree) MedFFT Thierno Diallo (Frostburg State) 141 - Khyvon Grace (West Liberty) MedFFT Hunter Burnett (Augustana) 149 - Dean Noble (Western Colorado) maj Devan Moore (Newberry) 16-3 157 - Owen Zablocki (Indianapolis) maj Bailey Gimbor (Kutztown) 18-7 165 - Aaden Valdez (Adams State) maj Anthony Herrera (St. Cloud State) 13-0 174 - Cole Hernandez (Western Colorado) dec Cole Glazier (St. Cloud State) 12-10 184 - Anthony Yacovetti (Lander) dec Bryce Fitzpatrick (St. Cloud State) 8-2 197 - Dakoda Rodgers (Pitt-Johnstown) dec Wyatt Miller (Grand Valley State) 5-1 285 - Ryan Herman (Maryville) dec Luke Tweeton (Mary) 4-2

The 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Kansas City, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a city that hasn't hosted nationals since 2003 , but by all accounts, should be a great host. Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more. The Top Seed: Ridge Lovett (Nebraska) Two years ago, Ridge Lovett emerged as the tenth seed from a wild bottom half of a 149 lb bracket to make the national finals and All-American for the first time. That time he fought hard but ended up losing as Yianni Diakomihalis captured the third of his four NCAA titles. After a redshirt season, Lovett returned and has been better than ever. That 2022 finals run came as the tenth seed - now he starts atop the bracket. Lovett started the year ranked number one at the weight class, but really proved his mettle at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. In a weight class that featured almost the entire top-ten, at the time, Lovett captured the title with wins over a pair of past All-Americans. Not only has Lovett picked up wins this year, he’s doubled his bonus point percentage compared to his best total from a previous season (56% from 25.9%). Ultimately, Lovett would win his first 21 matches of the year before suffering a slight upset to Kyle Parco on the final weekend of the regular season. Lovett showed he was able to learn from the loss and bounced back in style with his first Big Ten championship. In the semis, Lovett pitched a shutout over Penn State freshman Tyler Kasak in the semifinals before downing Michigan’s Austin Gomez in the finals. It was the second win of the year for Lovett over the dangerous Gomez. While most do not want to engage in upperbody battles with Gomez, Lovett did not shy away from the possibility in this meeting. Lovett is looking to become the first Cornhusker to bring a national title back to Lincoln since the legendary Jordan Burroughs in 2011. However it works out, 149 lbs will produce a first-time champion, Lovett or otherwise. The Contenders: #2 Kyle Parco (Arizona State), #3 Jackson Arrington (NC State), #4 Caleb Henson (Virginia Tech), #5 Ty Watters (West Virginia), #6 Austin Gomez (Michigan) The Conference Champs: ACC: #3 Jackson Arrington (NC State) Big 12: #5 Ty Watters (West Virginia) Big Ten: #1 Ridge Lovett (Nebraska) EIWA: #9 Ethan Fernandez (Cornell) MAC: #11 Quinn Kinner (Rider) Pac-12: #2 Kyle Parco (Arizona State) SoCon: #18 Cody Bond (Appalachian State) Top First-Round Matches: #16 Kelvin Griffin (Lehigh) vs. #17 Graham Rooks (Indiana) #12 Ethen Miller (Maryland) vs. #21 Willie McDougald (Oklahoma) #14 Dylan D’Emilio (Ohio State) vs. #19 Joe Zargo (Wisconsin) #10 Chance Lamer (Cal Poly) vs. #23 Drew Roberts (Minnesota) #15 Corbyn Munson (Central Michigan) vs. #18 Cody Bond (Appalachian State) Even though he had a head-to-head win over Lovett, Kyle Parco had to settle for the second seed since he had a 21-3 (21-2 officially) record on the year. Parco has already placed at the NCAA Tournament during each of his previous three appearances. The 2023 tournament marked his best showing as Parco made the NCAA semifinals before finishing in fourth. During the 2023-24 regular season, Parco took third at the CKLV and defaulted out of the Midlands after losing to an unrostered opponent. The #3/#4 seeds belong to the ACC contingent of the contenders. Jackson Arrington gets the nod after his ACC finals win over returning All-American Caleb Henson. During the dual season, it was Henson who prevailed - as he did twice last year when both were true freshmen. Henson is looking to take a more direct route to the podium this year. Last season, he was also the fourth seed and was upset in the Round of 16 and had to win three straight matches to clinch All-American honors. Arrington only has two losses on the year, and after he beat Henson, he has avenged both of them. A pair of true freshmen, ones who weren’t necessarily expected to be in this position, are seeded fifth and seventh. Ty Watters came to West Virginia after being named the #32 overall recruit in the Class of 2023. With a win over an NCAA qualifier in his collegiate debut and wins in eight of his first nine matches, Watters quickly proved he was capable of competing right away. He would go on to win the Big 12 title with three bonus point wins and an injury default. Kasak was expected to redshirt and even competed early in the season at 141 lbs. After returning All-American Shayne Van Ness was lost for the year with an injury, Kasak stepped up to replace Van Ness at 149. Kasak has filled in more than admirably earning a regular season win over returning All-American Dylan D’Emilio and replicating that result at the Big Ten Championships. In Maryland, only Lovett beat Kasak, and the freshman finished in third place. As always, perhaps the most dangerous wrestler in this bracket is Austin Gomez. The 2022 Big Ten champion and NCAA All-American Austin Gomez comes in as the sixth seed. Gomez joined Michigan after the first semester and has fought to a 9-2 record. His only two losses have come to Lovett. Gomez closed the distance on Lovett from match one to match two. Their dual meeting bordered on a major decision, while the Big Ten finals was a one-point decision. Gomez does hold a pair of wins over Lovett from the 2021-22 season. For a high All-American finish, don’t count out the eighth seed, Casey Swiderski. Swiderski had an up-and-down true freshman season, but turned it on late with a Round of 12 finish at 141 lbs. This year, he moved up to 149 and has been excellent. Swiderski was the top seed at the Big 12 Championships, but was knocked off in the semis by Jordan Williams. He has EIWA champion Ethan Fernandez and Lovett in his quarterfinal, but isn’t someone who will be phased by either. Darkhorse All-American Candidate: #17 Graham Rooks (Indiana) Last postseason, Graham Rooks emerged as a legit All-American contender with some timely upsets. In the 2023 Big Ten Championships Rooks upset Gomez to make the semifinals and downed another past AA, Yahya Thomas, to finish fifth. Then in Tulsa, Rooks had upsets in his first two matches (#13 Kellyn March and #4 Caleb Henson) to make the national quarterfinals. His tournament ended in the bloodround courtesy of Michael Blockhus. Once again, Rooks has the potential for a deep run. Though he may have a second-round matchup with Lovett, the way the consolations could break might be in his favor. Extreme (20+) Darkhorse All-American Contender: #20 Jordan Williams (Oklahoma State) This is one that probably should have an asterisk to denote “if healthy.” Jordan Williams was one of the top recruits in the Class of 2022 after winning freestyle titles in Fargo on three occasions (twice as a Cadet; once as a Junior). Even so, he had to fend off a challenge from Rutgers transfer Sammy Alvarez just to secure the starting role for the Cowboys. Williams saved his best for the Big 12 Championships when he defeated qualifier Alek Martin and top-seed Casey Swiderski to make the finals. As alluded to above, Williams had to default out of the finals bout against Ty Watters. If he’s close to top form, Williams could be in for a deep run this week. The Team Race: From a team race standpoint, perhaps the most important bout in this bracket could come in the quarterfinals as #3 Jackson Arrington is expected to meet #6 Austin Gomez. A win for Gomez could put him in good position to out-wrestle his seed, while the loser had to get their hand raised in the bloodround to lock up a place in the top-eight. Though D’Emilio and Caleb Rathjen are both seeded outside of the top-12, they are both battle-tested through the Big Ten and have a decent shot at breaking into the top-eight. With NCAA tournament scoring being so dependent on your high-finishers, Lovett is obviously Nebraska’s best shot at a champion and/or a finalist. For them to challenge for that second spot, as a team, they’ll need Lovett to make it to Saturday night. Projected Quarterfinals: #1 Ridge Lovett (Nebraska) vs. #8 Casey Swiderski (Iowa State) #12 Ethen Miller (Maryland) vs. #4 Caleb Henson (Virginia Tech) #3 Jackson Arrington (NC State) vs. #6 Austin Gomez (Michigan) #7 Tyler Kasak (Penn State) vs. #2 Kyle Parco (Arizona State) Projected Semifinals #1 Ridge Lovett (Nebraska) vs. #4 Caleb Henson (Virginia Tech) #6 Austin Gomez (Michigan) vs. #2 Kyle Parco (Arizona State) Projected All-Americans 1st: Ridge Lovett (Nebraska) 2nd: Austin Gomez (Michigan) 3rd: Caleb Henson (Virginia Tech) 4th: Kyle Parco (Arizona State) 5th: Tyler Kasak (Penn State) 6th: Casey Swiderski (Iowa State) 7th: Jackson Arrington (NC State) 8th: Chance Lamer (Cal Poly) Projected Round of 12 Finishers: #12 Ethen Miller (Maryland), #13 Caleb Rathjen (Iowa), #5 Ty Watters (West Virginia), #17 Graham Rooks (Indiana) Projected Consolation Round of 16 Finishers: #15 Corbyn Munson (Central Michigan), #21 Willie McDougald (Oklahoma), #19 Joe Zargo (Wisconsin), #9 Ethan Fernandez (Cornell)

The 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Kansas City, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a city that hasn't hosted nationals since 2003 , but by all accounts, should be a great host. Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more. The Top Seed: Jesse Mendez (Ohio State) A year ago, Jesse Mendez was a true freshman doing anything possible to grind out wins at 133 lbs. His run to the NCAA podium included three one-point wins that were decided in tiebreakers. Mendez showed some poise and guts, beyond his age, while finishing sixth in the nation. This season, Mendez moved up to 141 lbs and has tried to display more of the offensive skills that led him to being named the fourth overall recruit in the Class of 2022. Those efforts have shown on the mat and Mendez has more than doubled his bonus point percentage compared to last season (74% from 35%). More scoring has led to more consistency in the win-loss column, as well. Mendez heads into Kansas City with a 24-2 record and is fresh off an impressive showing at the Big Ten Championships. No Big Ten weight class is ever easy or light, but Mendez’s path to a title in Maryland was tougher than others. Just to make the finals, he had to unseat the 2023 conference champion, Real Woods. Their bout was one of the more anticipated of the year since Ohio State and Iowa didn’t dual this year. In the finals, Mendez struck with a late takedown to defeat previously undefeated Beau Bartlett. Bartlett was responsible for one of Mendez’s two losses on the year - it came in sudden victory during the school’s dual meet. From day one, Mendez had the rest of the 141 lb weight class on notice with a dominant performance at the Clarion Open followed by two dual wins. Then he went out to the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational and claimed a title at one of the toughest weights in the tournament. To capture the championship, Mendez had to get by Ryan Jack (now the #4 seed) in the finals and returning All-American and Big Ten finalist Brock Hardy (now the #9 seed) in the semifinals. Mendez’s growth during year two in Columbus is evident. He’s proven that he can prevail in hard-fought ugly matches and he can light up the scoreboard - whichever the situation dictates. With a capable crew of contenders awaiting, Mendez will probably have to do a lot of the former to get his hand raised on Saturday night. The Contenders: #2 Beau Bartlett (Penn State), #3 Real Woods (Iowa), #4 Ryan Jack (NC State), #5 Anthony Echemendia (Iowa State) The Conference Champs ACC: #4 Ryan Jack (NC State) Big 12: #5 Anthony Echemendia (Iowa State) Big Ten: #1 Jesse Mendez (Ohio State) EIWA: #11 Josh Koderhandt (Navy) MAC: #12 Wyatt Henson (Lock Haven) Pac-12: #14 Jesse Vasquez (Arizona State) SoCon: #17 Isaiah Powe (Chattanooga) Top First-Round Matches #12 Wyatt Henson (Lock Haven) vs. #21 Joshua Edmond (Missouri) #13 Jordan Titus (West Virginia) vs. #20 Tom Crook (Virginia Tech) #3 Real Woods (Iowa) vs. #30 Clay Carlson (South Dakota State) #11 Josh Koderhandt (Navy) vs. #22 CJ Composto (Penn) #15 Mitch Moore (Rutgers) vs. #18 Cole Matthews (Pittsburgh) Every weight has threats from the Big Ten; however, this one is a bit different as it is the only weight this year where the top three seeds come from the Big Ten. Returning third-place finisher Beau Bartlett looked to be on track to the top seed; however, he was knocked from the realms of the unbeaten by Mendez in the Big Ten finals. Bartlett is 20-1 on the year and has head-to-head wins over most of the contenders from his conference this year. Will there be a rubber match between Bartlett and Mendez? Bartlett took the dual meeting, while Mendez evened up by winning in the B1G finals. Could this be another situation where a Penn State wrestler reverses the result from the Big Ten meet to nationals? The returning NCAA runner-up, Woods, is back for a final crack at a national championship. One sequence where he was put on his back in the 2023 finals against Andrew Alirez proved to be the difference last season. Woods came into that tournament undefeated but has taken a few lumps this year, losing three of his 21 bouts. His path back to the finals is quite difficult with a possibility of three All-American opponents, before reaching the finals. He’ll start his tournament against two-time All-American Clay Carlson of South Dakota State. During their only career meeting, Carlson downed Woods 11-4 in the 2021 Bloodround. That match took place while Woods was at Stanford and he has greatly improved in the last three years. After the triumvirate from the Big Ten atop this weight is a talented group of contenders from the Big 12 and ACC. The Big 12 is featured in seeds #5 (Anthony Echemendia), #7 (Cael Happel), and #10 (Tagen Jamison). Echemendia won the conference and has only lost once since his seventh-place finish in Vegas. The Big 12 finals saw him down Happel, 4-2. Happel was fourth in Vegas, with a win over Echemendia; however, he dropped their two subsequent meetings. Happel is also 2-0 against Jamison. Jamison is responsible for Echemendia’s most recent loss and holds wins over Sergio Lemley (#8), Brock Hardy (#9), and Josh Koderhandt (#11). The ACC features #4 Ryan Jack who finally got past long-time nemesis #18 Cole Matthews. Jack has lost three times this year, twice to Mendez and once to Matthews. The win over Matthews in the ACC finals snapped a five-match losing streak to the Panther All-American. Matthews had an extremely rough start to his 2023-24 campaign - his record after January 5th was 9-8; however, he handed Mendez his first loss of the year and reasserted himself against conference foes. Matthews went unbeaten in conference duals that included wins over Jack, All-American Lachlan McNeil, and Tom Crook. McNeil is also someone to account for in this bracket. He’ll start as the sixth seed. Last year, he was the #10 and ended up competing against his old Wyoming Seminary teammate (Bartlett) in the NCAA third-place match. Darkhorse All-American Candidate: #14 Jesse Vasquez (Arizona State) I was sitting matside at WrangleMania and witnessed a gruesome arm injury to Jesse Vasquez in only his second bout of the 2023-24 season. It was the kind of injury that everyone surrounding the mat knew was very serious and potentially a season-ender. Remarkable Vasquez made it back and was re-inserted into the Arizona State lineup on February 9th. He responded with a tech fall in his first match back. During the final weekend of the regular season, Vasquez split matches with some high-quality opponents. He defeated Malyke Hines, but lost to Hardy. Vasquez then went on to defeat his old high school teammate Cleveland Belton to claim his first Pac-12 title. Despite being a quality competitor for ASU, this will be Vasquez’s first time wrestling at nationals. Previously, he’s been a victim of some untimely injuries. Looking at the brackets, lo and behold, Vasquez meets Hines in the first round. Should Vasquez prevail again, he’d have Woods in the second round, which isn’t a great matchup - though every NCAA Round of 16 match is tough. Even if he were to drop that match, I like the way the consolations could break in Vasquez’s favor. Now that Vasquez has proven to be near his pre-injury form, his time away from the mat could work to his benefit. The rigors of a long season could wear down some of his competitors, while Vasquez is relatively fresh with only 11 pre-NCAA matches under his belt. Extreme (20+) Darkhorse All-American Contender: #21 Josh Edmond (Missouri) One of the better, but overlooked, performances from conference weekend was Josh Edmond’s third-place finish in a loaded Big 12 bracket. Edmond defeated Jamison and #13 seed Jordan Titus (via injury default). During the home stretch of the regular season, he downed the eventual conference runner-up, Happel. For his work, Edmond was given the #21 seed. That means he’ll face #12 Wyatt Henson in one of the most intriguing first-round bouts of this weight class. Henson is the MAC champion and sports a robust 35-2 record. Due to NCAA eligibility concerns, Henson competed unattached for the first half of the year and crushed the competition in open tournament. Once he was able to don a Lock Haven singlet, not much changed. He comes into KC with 19 tech falls on the year. Despite the gaudy numbers, we’re not really sure how good Henson is in relation to the stars of this weight class. Late in the year, he was pinned by #11 seed Koderhandt. Aside from that, Henson hasn’t really faced any of the typical All-American threats. A match between Henson/Edmond could help Edmond keep the momentum going or prove that Henson is the most overlooked wrestler in this bracket. The Team Race: This is a weight class where a lot of trophy-hopeful teams have prominent wrestlers expected to be in the mix. Real Woods, Ryan Jack, Anthony Echemendia, Sergio Lemley, Brock Hardy, Tagen Jamison. All have the potential for a deep run and valuable team points. At the same time, not everyone will be able to do so. There’s a chance that two or three of these guys will get left off the podium, costing their respective teams All-American points. Key matches to watch in this aspect are Lemley/Hardy in the Round of 16, Jack/Echemendia in the quarters, and Bartlett/Woods in the semis. Projected Quarterfinals: #1 Jesse Mendez (Ohio State) vs. #8 Sergio Lemley (Michigan) #5 Anthony Echemendia (Iowa State) vs. #4 Ryan Jack (NC State) #3 Real Woods (Iowa) vs. #6 Lachlan McNeil (North Carolina) #7 Tagen Jamison (Oklahoma State) vs. #2 Beau Bartlett (Penn State) Projected Semifinals #1 Jesse Mendez (Ohio State) vs. #5 Anthony Echemendia (Iowa State) #3 Real Woods (Iowa) vs. #2 Beau Bartlett (North Carolina) Projected All-Americans 1st: Beau Bartlett (Penn State) 2nd: Jesse Mendez (Ohio State) 3rd: Anthony Echemendia (Iowa State) 4th: Real Woods (Iowa) 5th: Sergio Lemley (Michigan) 6th: Brock Hardy (Nebraska) 7th: Cael Happel (Northern Iowa) 8th: Tagen Jamison (Oklahoma State) Projected Round of 12 Finishers: #4 Ryan Jack (NC State), #11 Josh Koderhandt (Navy), #21 Josh Edmond (Missouri), #6 Lachlan McNeil (North Carolina) Projected Consolation Round of 16 Finishers: #32 Kal Miller (Maryland), #14 Jesse Vasquez (Arizona State), #13 Jordan Titus (West Virginia), #15 Mitch Moore (Rutgers)

Here's an easy place to find all of our content related to the 2024 NCAA DI National Championships. More will be added as published. Weight Class Previews 125 133 141 149 157 165 174 184 197 285 Conference Crossover Conversation NCAA Predictions Bracket Reactions Post-Conference Tournament Show Qualifier Information Brackets NCAA Releases Final Set of Coaches Rankings' and RPI At-Large Berths Announced Who's In: Who Has Clinched Berths to the NCAA Tournament Conference-Specific Content ACC Wrestlers at the 2024 NCAA Championships Ceilings and Floors for the Pac-12 at the 2024 NCAA Championships 2024 NCAA B1G Confidence Picks Conference Tournament Results ACC Big 12 Big Ten EIWA MAC Pac-12 SoCon Miscellaneous The Last Time Kansas City Hosted NCAA's... Top First Round Matches Facts, Trends and Numbers from the 2024 NCAA Championships Making Sense of the 2024 DI Brackets A Deeper Look into At-Large Berths

The 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Kansas City, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a city that hasn't hosted nationals since 2003 , but by all accounts, should be a great host. Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more. The Top Seed: Daton Fix (Oklahoma State) Will this be the year that Daton Fix comes out on top? Since 2018-19, Daton Fix has been a contender or favorite at 133 lbs. In his first three NCAA appearances, Fix’s title run was halted in the national finals. Last season, Fix was soundly defeated by Vito Arujau in the semifinals and settled for fourth place. Despite his lack of an NCAA title, Fix has been one of the best wrestlers in the nation for his entire collegiate career. Only once has he suffered defeat prior to the NCAA Tournament. This year is no different as the Cowboy star. He sports a 17-0 record after becoming the first wrestler to claim five Big 12 Championships. Fix holds the top seed at the NCAA tournament for the third time in his career. He’s never been seeded lower than second. Like others in this weight class, Fix also has his sights set on making the 2024 Olympic Team, so he didn’t compete nearly as frequently as he had in the past and has reportedly kept in weight within striking distance for 57 kg (125.6 lbs). In the 2023-24 season, Fix has maintained a bonus-point percentage of around 65% which is generally the range he’s stuck with throughout his career. His most notable win came in the Cowboys dual win over NC State, when he majored third-seeded Kai Orine. Fix also majored his Big 12 finals opponent #8 seed Evan Frost during their dual meeting. Because of the loss to Arujau at the 2023 national tournament and his fourth-place finish, Fix started the year ranked second behind Arujau. For the bulk of the year, the top ranking at this weight belonged to Lehigh freshman Ryan Crookham; however, based on the seeding matrix, Fix was given the top seed. That seed puts him away from those two EIWA powers and on the same half of the Big Ten finalists. At this point, as the 2024 NCAA Tournament is Fix’s last opportunity to claim an NCAA title, the side of the bracket and whether it’s slightly more difficult or not, is irrelevant. Fix and the Oklahoma State staff aren’t worried about just making it onto the raised stage, they want to win. The Contenders: #2 Ryan Crookham (Lehigh), #3 Kai Orine (NC State), #4 Dylan Ragusin (Michigan), #5 Dylan Shawver (Rutgers), #6 Vito Arujau (Cornell) The Conference Champs ACC: #3 Kai Orine (NC State) Big 12: #1 Daton Fix (Oklahoma State) Big Ten: #5 Dylan Shawver (Rutgers) EIWA: #2 Ryan Crookham (Lehigh) MAC: #27 Gable Strickland (Lock Haven) Pac-12: #7 Nasir Bailey (Little Rock) SoCon: #21 Ethan Oakley (Appalachian State) Top First-Round Matches #12 Sam Latona (Virginia Tech) vs. #21 Ethan Oakley (Appalachian State) #14 Jacob Van Dee (Nebraska) vs. #19 Julian Farber (Northern Iowa) #11 Zeth Romney (Cal Poly) vs. #22 Dom Zaccone (Campbell) #15 Brody Teske (Iowa) vs. #18 Derrick Cardinal (South Dakota State) It only took until the second week of the regular season for this weight class to be thrown into a loop. Arujau was the returning champion and Outstanding Wrestler at the 2023 tournament as he dismantled Fix and two-time champion Roman Bravo-Young to claim his national title. A few months later, Arujau won Final X and then a gold medal at the 2024 World Championships. With all that in mind, Arujau was stunned during his third collegiate bout of the 2023-24 season by Lehigh’s redshirt freshman Ryan Crookham. Arujau and the Cornell staff picked their spots during the rest of the regular season as Arujau was dealing with injuries and also had Olympic Trials in the back of his mind. He and Crookham met again in the EIWA and again it was Crookham who prevailed in a fun 10-6 bout. Because of his losses to Crookham and lack of high-quality wins, Arujau was relegated to the sixth seed. Crookham stormed onto the high school scene as a freshman state champion and quickly established himself as one of the top wrestlers in his class. Unfortunately, he dealt with a variety of injuries and had a limited national schedule during his final years of high school. That led to his recruiting ranking slipping a bit and he was deemed the #20 overall recruit in the Class of 2022. In addition to the Arujau win, Crookham also had an early-season victory over the returning Big Ten runner-up and All-American Aaron Nagao. Those wins coupled with him winning the starting role over a potential All-American candidate in Connor McGonagle elevated Crookham to a number one national ranking. Crookham isn’t the only impressive freshman in the weight. The seventh-seeded true freshman from Little Rock, Nasir Bailey, also fits the bill. Bailey became the first Little Rock wrestler to win a Pac-12 title and holds a 23-2 record on the year. One of those two losses was a 4-0 shutout via Arujau at the Collegiate Duals. The Big Ten finalists will be on the top half of the bracket with champion Dylan Shawver holding the fourth seed and runner-up Dylan Ragusin coming in at five. Though Shawver teched Ragusin in the conference championship bout, Ragusin did beat him twice during the regular season. Ragusin initially intended on redshirting this season, but was called into action after a season-ending injury to Chris Cannon. He proceeded to win his first 20 matches of the year before getting upset by Jacob Van Dee. Shawver was a national qualifier from Rutgers in 2022 at 125 lbs, but wasn’t able to secure the starting role last season with Dean Peterson in the mix. He was able to use a medical redshirt for the 2022-23 campaign. Back in the fold and up a weight, Shawver has been as good as ever. He’ll come to KC on a six-match winning streak. On the bottom half of the bracket is the aforementioned Orine. Orine was a 2023 All-American who has taken the next step this season. He was victorious in his first eight matches of the year, a span that included the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. In the Vegas finals, Orine majored the eventual Big 12 finalist Evan Frost. Also lurking on the bottom half is 10th seeded Aaron Nagao. He has a relatively pedestrian regular season, but looked like he may be back on track at the Big Ten Championships. Nagao finished third, losing only to Ragusin, and notched a pair of wins over Van Dee and Maryland’s Braxton Brown. Darkhorse All-American Candidate: #16 Nic Bouzakis (Ohio State) One of the big talking points entering the Big Ten Championships was the late entry of Brody Teske, which forced him into the 14th seed, regardless of any seeding criteria. What that did was set up a huge first-round bout with Teske and the third seed, Nic Bouzakis. In one of the best bouts of the tournament, Teske prevailed 15-13. That pushed Bouzakis into the consolations and he was eliminated by Jacob Van Dee before securing an automatic berth to Kansas City. The loss led Bouzakis, someone who was ranked in the top-12 for most of the year, to rely on an at-large berth. Bouzakis comes in as the 16th seed which is generally not an ideal place in any bracket. Should he win in the first round, a likely matchup with Fix awaits. Despite being a redshirt freshman, I wouldn’t expect the bright lights of the T-Mobile Arena and a date with Fix to fluster Bouzakis. He’s already competed multiple times on the world level and at every notable age-group tournament domestically. Though he had some ups and downs this year, Bouzakis has notched some excellent wins. In the Buckeyes surprising upset of NC State, he pinned Orine in less than a minute. Against Penn State, Bouzakis downed Nagao, 13-7. I don’t necessarily think Bouzakis will beat Fix; however, he’s capable of a great consolation run. That resiliency was evident in Vegas as he fell in round one then reeled off seven straight wins - four over eventual national qualifiers. Extreme (20+) Darkhorse All-American Contender: #28 Michael Colaiocco (Penn) Michael Colaiocco isn’t a name that you’d associate with a darkhorse for a potential All-American run; however, anyone with a #28 seed is typically in for a rough tournament. The #28 seed means that Colaiocco has an imposing opening match against Big Ten champion Dylan Ragusin. The two clashed earlier this year at the Midlands and Ragusin won via 15-3 major decision. While expecting Colaiocco to reverse the result of a major decision might be too much to ask, he would have a decent path in the consolations, provided no big upsets occur. Despite the seed, don’t be surprised to see Colaiocco deep in the tournament on Friday. The Team Race: NCAA team scoring is largely dependent on your big guns. The biggest gun for Oklahoma State is Daton Fix, so if they hope to take home some team hardware, a Fix win would go a long way toward ensuring it. There have been plenty of people who have posted NCAA team scores based on seeds, which is a decent starting point, but ultimately not relevant as it assumes the higher seeds will prevail. Someone who should outwrestle his seed by a big margin is Vito Arujau, who starts as the number six. Big points will be on the line in the quarterfinals as Arujau and Orine could meet - both compete for teams expected to be in the trophy hunt. The same can be said for most potential quarterfinals. We have it Fix/Ragusin and Arujau/Crookham. All of those teams are expected to finish in the top ten and could be higher with a win here. Projected Quarterfinals: #1 Daton Fix (Oklahoma State) vs. #8 Evan Frost (Iowa State) #5 Dylan Ragusin (Michigan) vs. #4 Dylan Shawver (Rutgers) #3 Kai Orine (NC State) vs. #6 Vito Arujau (Cornell) #2 Ryan Crookham (Lehigh) vs. #10 Aaron Nagao (Penn State) Projected Semifinals: #1 Daton Fix (Oklahoma State) vs. #5 Dylan Ragusin (Michigan) #6 Vito Arujau (Cornell) vs. #2 Ryan Crookham (Lehigh) Projected All-Americans: 1st: Daton Fix (Oklahoma State) 2nd: Ryan Crookham (Lehigh) 3rd: Vito Arujau (Cornell) 4th: Dylan Ragusin (Michigan) 5th: Dylan Shawver (Rutgers) 6th: Aaron Nagao (Penn State) 7th: Kai Orine (NC State) 8th: Jacob Van Dee (Nebraska) Projected Round of 12 Finishers: #7 Nasir Bailey (Little Rock), #8 Evan Frost (Iowa State), #12 Sam Latona (Virginia Tech), #16 Nic Bouzakis (Ohio State) Projected Consolation Round of 16 Finishers: #15 Brody Teske (Iowa), #28 Michael Colaiocco (Penn), #19 Julian Farber (Northern Iowa), #26 Kade Moore (Missouri)

The NCAA field has been set, the brackets have been released and we're less than a week away from the first whistle at the 2024 NCAA Championships. Ryan, Austin, and Robbie are back to discuss the brackets and seeding. What was good, bad, controversial?

The 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships are less than a week away! In a few short days, 330 wrestlers will make the trek to Kansas City, with hopes of a national title on their minds. Now it's in a city that hasn't hosted nationals since 2003 , but by all accounts, should be a great host. Before the action on the mat starts, InterMat will go through each individual bracket and highlight the favorites, top matches to watch, and much more. The Top Seed: Braeden Davis (Penn State) There’s been plenty of turnover from last year to this one at 125 lbs. Nothing represents that more than the top seed coming from Penn State and in the form of true freshman Braeden Davis. While the Nittany Lions have had stars up-and-down their lineup for most of the last decade-plus; they’ve had difficulty finding a permanent solution after the graduation of Nico Megaludis in 2016. In steps the true freshman from Michigan - one who seems to relish in the attention given to him while wrestling for Penn State and competing in high-stress situations. Davis comes to Kansas City as a Big Ten champion in a weight class that was loaded with experienced competitors. He earned wins over three All-Americans, Eric Barnett, Michael DeAugustino, and Patrick McKee. Two of Davis’ Big Ten wins came in sudden victory. The multiple close matches begs the question, “Is he playing with fire or does he have ice water in his veins?” I’d lean towards the latter; however, you never know with a true freshman in their first taste of NCAA competition. As of now, Davis has not looked phased at all by the big moments. Coming into the year, it was unclear whether or not we’d see Davis in the PSU starting lineup. The staff brought him along slowly and kept the possibility of him redshirting an option until mid-January. After winning the Journeymen Collegiate Classic and the Black Knight Invite, many suspected Davis was Penn State’s best option in 2023-24. That thought was confirmed when he knocked off 2022 All-American Brandon Kaylor during the Nittany Lions trip to Oregon State. Two weeks later, Davis notched a win over DeAugustino. Once Penn State got into the heart of the Big Ten season, Davis did suffer a pair of losses, to #3 Drake Ayala and #15 Caleb Smith. The good news is that neither is on Davis’ half of the bracket. Even so, Davis has a pretty nasty draw for being a number one seed. In the second round, he could square off with an opponent that pushed him to sudden victory (Dean Peterson) during their dual. The Contenders: #2 Luke Stanich (Lehigh), #3 Drake Ayala (Iowa), #4 Matt Ramos (Purdue) …everybody? The Conference Champs: ACC: #7 Jakob Camacho (NC State) Big 12: #5 Jore Volk (Wyoming) Big Ten: #1 Braeden Davis (Penn State) EIWA: #2 Luke Stanich (Lehigh) MAC: #12 Anthony Noto (Lock Haven) Pacl-12: #8 Richie Figueroa (Arizona State) SoCon: #22 Brayden Palmer (Chattanooga) Top First-Round Matches: #16 Dean Peterson (Rutgers) vs. #17 Brett Ungar (Cornell) #12 Anthony Noto (Lock Haven) vs. #21 Brandon Kaylor (Oregon State) #13 Noah Surtin (Missouri) vs. #20 Stevo Poulin (Northern Colorado) #14 Nico Provo (Stanford) vs. #19 Jett Strickenberger (West Virginia) #10 Eric Barnett (Wisconsin) vs. #23 Tanner Jordan (South Dakota State) #15 Caleb Smith (Nebraska) vs. #18 Michael DeAugustino (Michigan) This is the weight class that has blown our minds all year. From the first week of the season, with the returning national runner-up, Matt Ramos, losing to high schooler Marcus Blaze to a true freshman winning the Big Ten and assuming the number one seed. The Big Ten is loaded with experienced All-American threats. In addition to Davis, there are seniors like McKee, Barnett, and DeAugustino who have already made the podium. Plus, you have a Round of 12 finisher Dean Peterson and Caleb Smith, who finished eighth in the conference but owns wins over Davis, Ramos, and #6 Troy Spratley. All year 125 lbs has been unpredictable so it’s natural to expect that Kansas City will be no different. Five different wrestlers have held the number one ranking throughout the season and a handful of others have been ranked second. While some weights were constructed questionably due to the NCAA seeding formulas, 125 lb actually came out pretty well. Using human ranking methods to make sense of this weight class would leave most with a headache. For this weight, coming in hot may be more important than a great track record or a consistent body of work. No one in this bracket may be hotter than the eighth-seed Richie Figueroa. After an undefeated 2023-24 season splitting time with All-American Brandon Courtney, Figueroa came into the year ranked highly (#3) with lofty expectations. Injuries delayed his debut and he started slow once he hit the mat. The tide started to turn on the final week of the regular season when Figueroa handed Smith and #2 Luke Stanich losses. He stayed hot by winning the Pac-12 and defeating a pair of high-quality opponents in Nico Provo and Brandon Kaylor. One of the opponents that defeated Figueroa earlier in the year and comes in on a high note is Big 12 champion Jore Volk. Volk prevailed in a difficult-to-predict weight class that featured eight national qualifiers and five of the top-20 seeds. Volk’s final opponent Troy Spartley is seeded right behind him at six and is responsible for Stanich’s other official loss. Stanich still gets the second seed on the strength of his EIWA title - which was obtained after a 6-0 shutout of 2023 NCAA Round of 12 finisher Brett Ungar. There was plenty of uncertainty as to whether or not Stanich would redshirt this season; however, the Lehigh staff finally gave him the nod late in the season. Stanich announced himself to the college wrestling world by defeating four eventual national qualifiers, including Barnett, on his way to a Midlands title. Amazingly, the seventh seed belongs to ACC champion Jakob Camacho. While holding the number one ranking, Camacho went 0-3 at the Collegiate Duals, then suffered a loss to Spratley, before getting a break from the NC State staff. Refreshed, Camacho returned to the Wolfpack lineup and defeated Cooper Flynn in their much-anticipated dual meet and in the ACC finals. Camacho has earned a top-15 seed on three prior occasions, but has yet to approach the NCAA podium (once was when the tournament was canceled in 2020). Another wrestler who held the top ranking at this weight and was a 2023 All-American is Anthony Noto. Noto was one of the wrestlers who defeated Camacho at the Collegiate Duals. In his next appearance, Noto was handed his first loss of the season. He’s bounced back to win his third consecutive MAC title and holds the 12th seed. That may be a little low to compete for a title at most weights; however, 125 is a different animal and he’s in the mix. Darkhorse All-American Candidate: #14 Nico Provo (Stanford) No one saw Nico Provo’s Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational run coming in December. Provo was seeded ninth and ran through a gauntlet that included Volk, Ramos, and Ungar. That led Provo to rocket up the rankings and he was in fourth during the subsequent set of rankings. Since Vegas, Provo has been up-and-down, earning wins over both national qualifiers from his conference; however, he was dealt six losses and finished in second in the Pac-12. Provo has already demonstrated that he can come through against tough competition in back-to-back-to-back matches, despite holding an unenviable seed. He’s slated to meet Jett Strickenberger in the opening round in one of the best matches of the opening round at this weight. Strickenberger is fresh off a third-place finish in the Big 12 and is also hot at the right time of the year. Regardless of his first-round result, I could see Provo having a deep run in Kansas City. Extreme (20+) Darkhorse All-American Contender: #21 Brandon Kaylor (Oregon State) In some weights, it may be difficult to project a wrestler seeded in the 20’s making a podium run. At 125 lbs, not so much. 2022 All-American Brandon Kaylor has been there before and knows what it takes to break into the top eight. Looking at Kaylor’s resume this year, he holds wins over the #3 seed, Drake Ayala, Volk, and Provo. He fell in a true-second place match to Provo and needed an at-large berth to qualify. Kaylor is also someone who’s in a difficult first-round match. Throughout the entire tournament, there are only two first-round matches between returning All-Americans - Kaylor is in one of them, against Noto. The Team Race: We’re not necessarily talking about Davis and Penn State because they have so much firepower that it’s difficult to fathom a situation where they’re not running away with the title. One key factor in the race for second is Iowa’s Ayala. Ayala could represent the Hawkeyes best shot at a national title in 2024. He’s seeded third after finishing third in the Big Ten Championships. Ayala fell in the B1G quarters but battled back with wins over Peterson and Ramos. During the regular season, Ayala posted wins over top-seeded Davis and both Big 12 finalists. This could be a big swing weight class for some of the trophy contenders, as they have so-so seeds, but wrestlers capable of greatly outwrestling them. Either Nebraska’s Smith or Michigan’s DeAugustino will make the Round of 16, as they wrestle each other. Projected Quarterfinals: #1 Braeden Davis (Penn State) vs. #8 Richie Figueroa (Arizona State) #5 Jore Volk (Wyoming) vs. #4 Matt Ramos (Purdue) #3 Drake Ayala (Iowa) vs. #6 Troy Spratley (Oklahoma State) #2 Luke Stanich (Lehigh) vs. #10 Eric Barnett (Wisconsin) Projected Semifinals: #8 Richie Figueroa (Arizona State) vs. #4 Matt Ramos (Purdue) #3 Drake Ayala (Iowa) vs. #2 Luke Stanich (Lehigh) Projected All-Americans: 1st: Drake Ayala (Iowa) 2nd: Richie Figueroa (Arizona State) 3rd: Braeden Davis (Penn State) 4th: Matt Ramos (Purdue) 5th: Luke Stanich (Lehigh) 6th: Patrick McKee (Minnesota) 7th: Jakob Camacho (NC State) 8th: Eric Barnett (Wisconsin) Projected Round of 12 Finishers: #5 Jore Volk (Wyoming), #14 Nico Provo (Stanford), #19 Jett Strickenberger (West Virginia), #6 Troy Spratley (Oklahoma State) Projected Consolation Round of 16 Finishers: #17 Brett Ungar (Cornell), #21 Brandon Kaylor (Oregon State), #12 Anthony Noto (Lock Haven), #15 Caleb Smith (Nebraska)

With the at-large's announced on Tuesday and brackets released Wednesday, the NCAA Championships are officially looming. And now, less than a week away. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of our previews, here's a fun look at the NCAA Tournament and its competitors (individuals/teams). It's some of the facts, trends, numbers, and overall randomness that you never thought to look up about the participants of the 2024 NCAA Championships. Conference-Related Notes Since 2011, 13 different freshmen have captured Big Ten titles. Seven have wrestled for Penn State. They are David Taylor, Ed Ruth, Bo Nickal, Aaron Brooks, Levi Haines, and now Braeden Davis and Mitchell Mesenbrink. The others are Silas Allred (‘23), Kollin Moore (‘17), Nathan Tomasello (‘15), Isaiah Martinez (‘15), Jason Tsirtsis (‘14), and Logan Stieber (‘12). The last time there were two from the same school, in the same year, was Taylor/Ruth in 2011. Dylan Shawver’s Big Ten title made him only the third Rutgers wrestler to accomplish the feat. Nick Suriano had one in 2019 - the same year that Anthony Ashnault won the last of his three. Edmond Ruth’s Big Ten title at 174 lbs is the first for Illinois since 2018 when Isaiah Martinez won the last of his four titles. It also marks the first for Mike Poeta as a head coach. Nebraska has had Big Ten champions in back-to-back years (Ridge Lovett/24 and Silas Allred/23) for the first time since 2014 and 2015. James Green and Robert Kokesh won in 2014, while Kokesh repeated in 2015. Lovett’s Big Ten title made him the first Idaho native to win one since Dan Erekson did for Iowa at heavyweight in 2009 and 2010. More Big Ten state-related facts. Mitchell Mesenbrink’s title made him the first Wisconsin native to win in the B1G since Trevor Brandvold of Wisconsin in 2010 and 2011. Levi Haines and Edmond Ruth’s titles extended Pennsylvania’s streak with at least one Big Ten title by a Pennsylvania native, a streak that goes back to 2011. Aaron Brooks dominated on his way to a fourth Big Ten championship. He became the 18th wrestler to achieve that feat and the third Penn State wrestler to do so. A semifinal win from Zach Glazier kept Iowa’s streak of having at least one Big Ten finalist intact. They’ve had one every year since 1967. They did have a significantly shorter streak of at least one champion per year which was snapped. That dated back to 2018. Michigan had a great overall Big Ten tournament finishing in a distant second place to Penn State. Their final round wasn’t the greatest, though. The Wolverines went 1-8 in medal-round matches with only Lucas Davison (3rd) finishing with a win. Lennox Wolak (174) and Aaron Ayzerov (184) won EIWA titles in back-to-back weights for Columbia. When was the last time Columbia had multiple EIWA champions? You have to go all the way back…to 1935 when William Chilvers (126) and Ed King (175) captured titles for the Lions. Cornell crowned a trio of EIWA champions with Ethan Fernandez (149), Meyer Shapiro (157), and Julian Ramirez (165). The Big Red have had multiple individual titles every year since 2007 (with the exclusion of 2021 when no Ivies wrestled). NC State’s 116 points at the ACC Championships was the conference’s highest point total since Virginia amassed 124 back in 1974. NC State is only the second ACC team to win six consecutive conference titles. Maryland has the record with 20 in a row between 1954 and 1973. Virginia Tech’s Mekhi Lewis and NC State’s Trent Hidlay captured their fourth ACC titles - becoming the sixth and seventh wrestlers to achieve the feat. Lewis is the second Hokie to do so (Devin Carter) and Hidlay is the fourth member of the Wolfpack (Joe Lidowski, Darrion Caldwell, Hayden Hidlay). NC State’s seven ACC champions extended a streak with at least one champion per year for the Wolfpack that dates back to 2014. Virginia Tech has a similar ACC streak that goes back to 2010. Daton Fix became the first wrestler to win five Big 12 titles. David Carr had an opportunity to join him but fell in the 165 lb finals to Keegan O’Toole. Parker Kekeisen won his fourth and would have an opportunity next year for five. The Big 12 had three Iowa natives winning titles Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa/157), Cade DeVos (South Dakota State/174), and Tanner Sloan (South Dakota State/197). The last time three Iowa natives won the conference in the same year was 1996 with Jason Nurre (Iowa State/118), Derek Mountsier (Iowa State/142), and Tolly Thompson (Nebraska/285). Iowa State captured their first Big 12 team title under Kevin Dresser’s leadership and the program’s first since 2010. South Dakota State’s Big 12 titles from DeVos and Sloan marked the first for the school since 2018 when Seth Gross (133) and Nate Rotert (197) took titles. SDSU’s third-place finish in the Big 12 matched a school high for the conference. Peyten Kellar’s MAC title at 157 lbs made him Ohio’s first conference champion since Shakur Laney in 2017 (125 lbs). 2023 saw George Mason with their first MAC champion (Peter Pappas/157). Now the Patriots have back-to-back years with champions and have had multiple champs (Evan Maag/165 and Malachi DuVall/184) for the first time since moving to the MAC. The last time George Mason had multiple conference champions it was two conferences ago, in the CAA, in 2009 - when Bagna Tovuujav (174) and Cayle Byers (197). Cleveland State’s Ben Smith captured his second career MAC title. He’s the only Viking wrestler to win the MAC and is CSU’s first multi-time conference champion since Riley Shaw won the EWL in 2015 and 2016 at 285 lbs. Anthony Noto won the MAC at 125 lbs for Lock Haven for the third straight year. He is the first Lock Haven wrestler to win three conference titles since Mike Geurin won the EWL in 1995-1997. Jacori Teemer and Cohlton Schultz both won their fourth Pac-12 championships. The pair became the sixth and seventh ASU wrestlers to achieve the feat. Seeding The 125 lb weight class has freshmen seeded #1 and #2 (Braeden Davis and Luke Stanich). The last time that freshmen were seeded #1 and #2 at the same weight class was in 2003 at 141 lbs with #1 Teyon Ware (Oklahoma) and #2 Zach Esposito (Oklahoma State). Both were true freshmen, like Davis/Stanich. Mekhi Lewis is only the second Virginia Tech wrestler to receive the #1 seed. Scott Justus was the top seed at 184 lbs in 2002 (but did not place). This is the third consecutive year that an Indiana native was named a top seed. Jesse Mendez is the guy this year at 141 lbs. Mason Parris (285/2023) and Nick Lee (141/2022) received the one in the previous two seasons. Before 2022, the last time an Indiana native received the top seed was in 2010 with Angel Escobedo and Andrew Howe both getting one. The last time an Idaho native received the number one seed was in 2011 at 157 lbs when Adam Hall received the honors (It was the weight that featured David Taylor and was won by Bubba Jenkins). Ridge Lovett is the Idaho native with a top seed this year. Wisconsin (the state) has a pair of top seeds with Keegan O’Toole (165) and Parker Keckeisen (184). The last time there were multiple number-one seeds from Wisconsin was in 2007 with Ben (174) and Max (197) Askren, along with Cole Konrad (285). Speaking of Wisconsin, I’m looking for the last time two Wisconsin natives held the top-two seeds at the same weight. That’s the case at 165 lbs with Keegan O’Toole and Mitchell Mesenbrink. It hasn’t happened in the last 30 years, at least. South Dakota State has a pair of top-three seeds with Cade DeVos (2nd/174) and Tanner Sloan (3rd/197). They haven’t had multiple top-three seeds in the same year since they moved to DI status in 2007. Lehigh has a pair of #2 seeds (Luke Stanich/125; Ryan Crookham/133). The last time they had multiple top-two seeds was in 2011 with Zach Rey (285/1) and Robert Hamlin (184/2). Arizona State has a pair of #2 seeds (Kyle Parco/149; Jacori Teemer/157). The last they had multiple top-two seeds was in 1993 with Shawn Charles (126/1) and Ray Miller (167/1). Matt Ramos of Purdue received the fourth seed for a second consecutive season. He’s the first wrestler from Purdue to get a top-four seed on multiple occasions since Ryan Lange was the fourth seed in 2003 and 2004. The NCAA first round features two bouts between past NCAA All-Americans: 125: #12 Anthony Noto vs. #21 Brandon Kaylor 141: #3 Real Woods vs. #30 Clay Carlson Team Related Notes Air Force has two wrestlers with top-ten seeds Wyatt Hendrickson (3rd) and Sam Wolf (8th). The last time Air Force had two in the top-ten was in 2013; Josh Martinez (125/10th) and Cole Von Ohlen (149/4th). Ben Pasiuk finished in the top-three in the EIWA for the fourth time in his career (2,2,3,1). He’s the first Army West Point wrestler with four top-three finishes since Matt Kyler in 2007-10 (1,2,1,2) Braden Basile (133), Gunner Filipowicz (165), and Lucas Stoddard (285) are all freshman NCAA qualifiers for Army. It is believed to be the first time they've had three freshman national qualifiers...ever. They haven't had more than one during the last 25 years; which is the extend of my qualifier records. We checked with the Army staff, as well. Michael Joyce’s fourth-place finish at the EIWA Championships was good enough for an automatic berth at 125 lbs. Joyce is Brown’s first national qualifier since the 2019 tournament and the first for head coach Jordan Leen. Hunter Leake’s sixth-place finish at the Big 12 Championships led him to become California Baptist’s first DI national qualifier. A few days later, his teammate Eli Griffin was added as an at-large to be the second. Franklin & Marshall has a pair of national qualifiers in James Conway and John Crawford. The last time the Diplomats had more than one qualifier in a season was 2016 with Rick Durso and Antonio Pelusi. Six Indiana Hoosiers will compete in Kansas City. The last time Indiana set six to the big dance was in 2010 when head coach Angel Escobedo was a senior. Coming into this season, only one Little Rock wrestler had ever qualified for the national tournament. They’ll send five this year. Neil Erisman’s team also saw Nasir Bailey capture the school’s first-ever Pac-12 title. Joey Bianchi and Stephen Little joined him by winning the league. A seventh-place finish at 184 lbs in the EIWA by Anthony D’Alesio gave Long Island its first DI national qualifier. At-Large day provided Minnesota with three additions meaning the Gophers would send their entire lineup to Kansas City. It marks the first time since 2013 that Minnesota would have all ten wrestlers at the national championship. A runner-up finish from Gaven Sax extended a Big 12 finalist streak for North Dakota State. The Bison have had at least one finalist during every year they’ve competed in the conference; 2016 - present. Peyten Kellar’s seventh seed at 157 lbs makes him the first Ohio wrestler to get a top-ten seed since Cody Walters who had that same seed in 2016. Ohio State had a highly-acclaimed, top-ranked recruiting Class in 2022. It makes sense now that the Buckeyes have seven first-time qualifiers among their nine representatives. For the second consecutive year, Trey Munoz has earned the fourth seed at 184 lbs. He’s the first Oregon State wrestler to receive a top-five seed on multiple occasions since Taylor Meeks (5th/2013; 5th/2015). Penn had a pair of wrestlers who qualified for the NCAA Championships for the fourth time - Michael Colaiocco and Cole Urbas. The last four-time qualifier for the Quakers was Micah Burak in 2010-13. They've got the in-state talent, but Penn State has been able to recruit the entire country. That’s evident here as seven different states are represented with their ten national qualifiers (MI, CA, AZ, PA, WI, MD, MN). On the other hand, Rider has a lineup that features all five NCAA qualifiers who are from New Jersey. Pac-12 runner-up Hunter Garvin is the first Iowa native to make the NCAA Tournament for Stanford since Bret Baumbach did so in 2013. Just like in 2023, Virginia Tech will send all ten wrestlers to nationals. It’s the first time in program history the Hokies have accomplished that feat in back-to-back seasons. VMI 133 lber Dyson Dunham is his school’s first qualifier since Neal Richards in 2020. He’ll be the first Keydet wrestler to actually compete at the tournament since 2019. Ty Watters became the first West Virginia freshman to win a conference title since Brandon Rader claimed an EWL title in 2006. Jore Volk, the fifth seed at 125 lbs, is Wyoming’s first top-five seed since Bryce Meredith was seeded #1 at 141 lbs in 2018. State Related Notes Alabama has three NCAA qualifiers this season with Sam Latona, Isaiah Powe, and Will Miller. My records go back for about 25 years and during that time Alabama had never had three qualifiers. Along those same lines, Alaska only has three entrants in the tournament. Two of them will wrestle in the first round at 197 lbs with #13 Caleb Hopkins and #20 Evan Bockman. Evan Frost became the first Louisiana native to qualify for the NCAA tournament since Ben Willeford of Cleveland State in 2015. Nebraska has four NCAA qualifiers this season - three of them reside in the 165 lb weight class; Antrell Taylor, Nick Hamilton, and Maxx Mayfield. As is typically the case, Pennsylvania leads the way with 43 total qualifiers. PA’s dominance is best illustrated by their representation at 197 lbs. Pennsylvania natives account for just under a quarter of the bracket (8 of 33). Leading the way is #2 Trent Hidlay and #4 Michael Beard. Others are Max Shaw, Luke Stout, Mac Stout, Cole Urbas, Jack Wehmeyer, and John Crawford. There are only three wrestlers from Tennessee in the entire tournament. Two will meet in the first round at 125 lbs as #11 Cooper Flynn will face #22 Brayden Palmer. Without a doubt, Wisconsin was the state that saw the sharpest increase in their NCAA qualifier numbers. The state had 8 in 2021, 7 in 2022, 6 last year and 16 this year. High Schools The #2 vs #31 match at 141 lbs will feature a pair of Wyoming Seminary alums clashing with Penn State’s #2 Beau Bartlett and Columbia’s #31 Kai Owen. Also on the bottom half of the bracket is another in #6 Lachlan McNeil. The 141 lb bracket also features former St. John Bosco (CA) teammates Jesse Vasquez and Cleveland Belton. Both were teammates at Arizona State before Belton transferred to Oregon State, then they met in the Pac-12 finals with Vasquez getting the win. (per Willie Saylor) The 16/17 match at 157 lbs is an excellent first-round match. On top of that, it featured Father Tolton Catholic (MO) teammates Teague Travis and Brock Mauller. The two overlapped by one year. Travis spent three years in Missouri before moving out to Stillwater. Also at 157 lbs is a pair of in-state Big Ten rivals. Will Lewan and Chase Saldate will wrestle for the sixth time in their collegiate careers. Lewan currently holds a 4-1 advantage. Brothers Luke (Princeton) and Mac (Pittsburgh) are on the same half of the top of the 197 lb bracket. Both would have to advance to the semifinals to square off. It’s difficult to project a way in which they meet in the consi’s. The much-anticipated final at 165 lbs could feature a pair of Arrowhead (WI) graduates - #1 Keegan O’Toole and #2 Mitchell Mesenbrink. Miscellaneous Mitch Moore and Austin Gomez will compete at the national championships for their third DI team. Moore qualified for Virginia Tech and Oklahoma, before coming to Rutgers. Gomez did the same for Iowa State and Wisconsin and will finish at Michigan. Speaking of Moore, he’ll clash with Cole Matthews in the opening round at 141 lbs. The two haven’t met since the 2019-20 season when Moore was in the ACC with Virginia Tech. Matthews prevailed 4-2. Chattanooga 125 lber Brayden Palmer is the only wrestler in the entire field who did not have a single 2023-24 match against an eventual national qualifier. (per Dan at WrestleStat) The combined amount of collegiate experience for Penn State freshman Braeden Davis’ Big Ten opponents was 23 years. Justin Cardani (6), Michael DeAugustino (6), Eric Barnett (5), Patrick McKee (6). (per Clay Sauertieg)

Was Dean Peterson upsetting Matt Ramos the highlight of your postseason? Madison Hollenbeck That and whatever wizardry Yonger Bastida pulled off on one leg in the Big 12 finals. Seriously, I’m still blown away by how he did that. But Dean’s run was a perfect microcosm of what that weight has been all year. Beat two guys who beat you this year with one being the top seed. Then drop a match to a guy you’ve beaten twice in the last year. Then drop another match on the backside just to come back and beat another guy who beat you this year. It’s 125 in a nutshell. As we know, anyone can beat anyone at this weight. It’s just a matter of who can do it five times in a row. As my man the Bronx Lawyer Will Forero once said, someone is going to win the title whether they like it or not. Who will be the biggest surprise AA this year? Jim Dutrow Give me the same guy who was the biggest surprise to win a conference tournament and that’s Nick Hamilton of Virginia. I admit 165 is a tough weight but that's what makes it such a surprise. Now, the guy got hit with a 30-seed even with the conference title, so the road could be a little rough. My other darkhorse is Lewis Fernandes. I’d like to see the big guy close out his career with a nice run. How many All-Americans will come from NJ? Mike Abromitis There’s a good seven or eight guys who can get on the podium I think. Or it could be two guys at 174. I would set the over/under at 4.5. Do most wrestlers hate basketball, or is it just me? Burger King of Kings I think they mostly just hate you. They see you asking FRL questions and Jag bag questions and they are not happy. Playing one side against the other, in bed with everybody and they are not happy. But seriously, I don’t think wrestlers hate basketball as much as the fans might. And I’m not even sure how much that’s a thing anymore. I like basketball. I don't watch it regularly but no animosity here. Fans just want everyone to love their sport and basketball is a hugely popular sport that competes with wrestling directly. Who cares. Get over it. If the NCAA wrestling tournament is going to allow inj def/MFF (Starocci, Griffith,etc) then why no Last Chance? Your boss poo-poo'd me but hear me out: If you don't finish the conference then you have to qualify at NCAA last chance during the gap week. Thicccolas It sounds fun, in theory, but we know it’s just not feasible. These guys got hurt. You can’t expect them to wrestle the next week and try to earn a spot that they already earned. Shane Griffith got hurt in the semifinals. I think that warrants a qualifying spot without having to wrestle in the finals. As far as I know (AFAIK for the kids), the humans on the seeding committee have the power to modify what the computer spits out by up to 3 spots in either direction. Should they have more expansive powers to adjust the seeds? Less? Oldest and Greatest I suppose that seems fair. The problem with mixing computer data with human common sense is trying to find that perfect balance between machine and man. Perhaps they did move Carter Starocci up three spots and ninth was the best they could do. Or maybe they could have dropped him down a spot the tenth just to separate all the champs in the top half of the bracket. Of course, they could have just stuck him as the top seed on principle and adjusted the field accordingly. But then set a precedent for guys to not even bother with their conference tournament because the committee says don't worry we won’t screw you. It’s just a tricky situation that was exacerbated by the fact that the wrestler involved happens to be such a dominant force in his weight class. How many BBQ restaurants will Willie try and which one will he like best? Gman Depends which one you’re taking him to. Rumor is that Willie always pays so it would behoove you to track him down and have a few beers. He might even hire you! How do you think I got this gig? Will the Eagles win the Super Bowl now that Saquon Barkley is on the right team? Kevin McGuigan I’m getting big DeMarco Murray vibes with this one. Also, it’s baseball season. Alright, folks. Time to wrap this up. I hope you all have a good weekend and that you get your affairs in order. One week from right now is the quarterfinals. The greatest round in all of sport.

Ivy vs EIWA The EIWA had a historic year in terms of the number of NCAA qualifications. This year’s total number was 62! This is nine more than last year’s total. As we know, this was the final year the Ivy League schools will participate in the EIWA Championships. Let’s take a look at the numbers of each league – the Ivies and the remainder of the EIWA. Of the 62 qualifiers, 29 wrestlers are from Ivy League institutions. That equates to 47% of the qualifiers. This creates pretty much an even split between the Ivies and the EIWA – or does it? When you consider the Ivies are only 6 of the 17 teams (35%) – you can see the Ivies actually over-represent the conference when it comes to qualifiers. The remaining 33 qualifiers from EIWA schools make up 53% of the conference’s qualifiers. However, the non-Ivy schools are 11 of 17 (65%) of the conference. The EIWA schools technically under-represent the conference. This is just something to keep in mind when next year’s allocations come out for each conference. Below is a breakdown of the Ivy’s qualifiers. Cornell and Penn lead the way over everyone else. Michael Joyce of Brown is the first NCAA qualifier to represent Brown University since 2019. Cornell having all ten wrestlers in Kansas City will increase the odds they compete for a team trophy again this year. All six schools have at least one qualifier. Cornell – 10 Penn – 8 Columbia – 4 Princeton – 3 Harvard – 3 Brown – 1 Below is a breakdown of the EIWA schools. Lehigh leads the way once again with eight NCAA qualifiers. All eight Mountain Hawks earned automatic bids. LIU’s Anthony D’Alesio is LIU’s first NCAA qualifier at the D1 level in program history. Note that Drexel and Sacred Heart did not have any qualifiers this year. Lehigh – 8 Army – 6 Navy – 5 Bucknell – 5 Binghamton – 4 Franklin & Marshall - 2 LIU - 1 Hofstra – 1 American – 1 Overperformances and Underperformances I was curious to see if any teams peaked better than others. Maybe there was a pattern of wrestlers who outwrestled their respective seeds, and vice versa, ones who underperformed according to their seed. Obviously, there is a caveat here. Wrestlers with high seeds cannot overperform much, and wrestlers with low seeds cannot underperform. This forces the data to be somewhat limited. But, let’s see what we can find. Looking at the highest overperformers, Columbia’s Andy Garr led the way. He was the 17th seed at 157 lbs. He finished the weekend in 6th place – a +11 delta. We saw Tyler Vasquez of Princeton place 5th at 141lbs after beginning as a 12th seed. Two wrestlers at 125lbs had a +7 delta also. LIU’s Robbie Sagaris earned 7th place and Mike Joyce of Brown finished 4th. The 133lbs bracket was bonkers with a lot of movement. The top performer at this weight was Hunter Adrian of Brown. The 16th seed placed 8th – which is a +8 delta. Both Max Leete of American and Sacred Heart’s Andrew Fallon had +6 deltas. Leete was the only one of these three to earn an NCAA allocation. With all of this positive movement, we saw two steep drop-offs of highly seeded wrestlers. Penn’s Michael Colaiocco was 3rd seed and did not place. Franklin & Marshall’s Mason Leiphart also failed to place as the 5th seed. What does this data tell us? Using the 133lbs bracket as an example, the wrestlers who over-performed wrestled more matches in the month leading up to conferences than their counterparts. Of the 17 wrestlers in this bracket, the average number of matches wrestled in February was four. When looking at the percentage of matches wrestled in February compared to the rest of the season, the average for the weight class was 18.3%. For example, Leete of American wrestled 23 matches on the year heading into EIWAs, and 5 of them were in the month of February. This equates to 21.75% of his season’s matches occurring a month before EIWAs. His number of matches was higher than the average and his placement versus seed delta was very high. The same can be said about Brown’s Hunter Adrian. He wrestled 28% of his matches in February and placed 8 spots above his seed. His total number of matches wrestled in February was much higher than the average. When looking at the best over-performances in all weights, a majority of them seem to have wrestled more matches in the month of February compared to others. Andy Garr wrestled 33% of his total matches in February and ended with a +11 delta. The rest of his weight class had a 22% rate of matches in February. Tyler Vasquez competed in 22% of his total matches in February – he ended with a +7 delta of his own where the average percentage of matches wrestled in February at the 141lbs bracket was only 19%. Also from Princeton, heavyweight Matt Cover, wrestled 35% of his matches in February and outplaced his seed by 4 spots. His 35% of matches wrestled in February was 14% higher than the heavyweight class. However, the average number of matches was 23 and Cover only wrestled 20. Cover wrestled fewer total matches, but more at the end of the season. Let’s flip to the underperformances. We mentioned that Colaiocco and Leiphart had the biggest drop-offs from their seeds. Interestingly, they also wrestled much less in February compared to the rest of the bracket. Colaiocco had 3 matches in February (only 13% of his total matches) while Leiphart also had 3 matches too (but this was under 10% of his total schedule). There are many other wrestlers who fit into this statistic as well. Nick Babin wrestled 27 overall matches on the year. Five of those were in February (19%). The 125 lb weight had an average of 21 total matches and 21% in the month of February. He failed to place top 8 while being the 6th seed. Notice, that he had more matches overall and fewer matches in February than the field on average. Kaemen Smith of Navy had 33 matches on the season and only three in February. He wrestled 9 matches more than the average, but 9% in February compared to the average of 25% for the field. His teammate at heavyweight, Grady Griess, also had more matches overall than his opponents and less in the month of February. The 3rd seed finished 7th in a tough bracket. There were wrestlers who wrestled a large chunk of their matches in February. We mentioned Cover above, who outperformed his seed by four spots while wrestling 35% of his matches in the month leading up to EIWAs. Some did the opposite and saw success. At 141lbs, Dylan Chappell of Bucknell is an example of this. He only wrestled 15% of his matches in February, but outperformed his 7th seed by 5 placements. Columbia’s Richard Fedalen is in the same boat, wrestling fewer matches overall and in the month of February. He had a +4 delta on the weekend. Based on the data – a majority of wrestlers who had less mat time in February ended up falling short of their seeds. Again, this was not the case for everyone. It plays out true about three-quarters of the time. Did it cost a couple wrestlers a trip to NCAAs – of course it did. Obviously, there are other factors at play like injuries. Wrestlers who were injured at the end of the year probably had less mat time leading up – obviously. I’m sure a lot of these “under-performances” were injury-related. It was interesting to look into the data. Every team trains differently throughout the year, so the schedule is made accordingly. Every wrestler is different too. Many of them need to taper off at the end of the year. Many of them need to stay competing at a higher level. This was not done to highlight or poo-poo on any team, wrestler, or coach. It was strictly an exercise to see if the number of overall matches and matches wrestled a month before EIWAs had any effect on a wrestler’s outcome at the conference tournament. I am curious to see if we will see similar results next season to verify if there are any trends. This could all be a one-off exercise this year. We shall see! NCAA Qualifier Breakdown There is no surprise that Pennsylvania and New Jersey dominated the number of qualifiers, based on both depth of quality wrestling and location. These two states are typically represented the most at NCAAs, but the geography of the EIWA schools also makes these two states no-brainers. In my opinion, it was great to see states like Florida and Massachusetts have multiple representatives. One interesting stat here is that five of the seven qualifiers at 197 lbs are from Pennsylvania. Below is a breakdown of the 15 states that have an NCAA qualifier from the EIWA. Note, each wrestler’s hometown was used. PA – 16 NJ – 13 OH – 7 NY – 6 FL – 5 MA – 3 GA – 2 WI – 2 IL – 2 CO – 1 MD – 1 ME – 1 NC – 1 NE – 1 RI – 1 There are nine freshmen qualifiers of the 62 from the EIWA. Seven of those nine are true freshmen. The redshirt freshmen are both Lehigh wrestlers in Ryan Crookham and Kelvin Griffin. True (first-year) freshmen include Luke Stanich of Lehigh, Max Gallagher of Penn, Braden Basile of Army, Meyer Shapiro of Cornell, Gunner Filipowicz of Army, Myles Takats of Bucknell, and Lucas Stoddard of Army. Notice that Army and Lehigh both have three freshmen NCAA qualifiers. They were 2nd and 3rd as a team in the conference this year. With Cornell leaving next season, the two favorites will have plenty of quality youth returning. When we look at multiple time qualifiers – there are too many to list. When we narrow the list down to 4X qualifiers, the list is much more manageable. The seven below will be competing at the NCAA Championships for the 4th time! (I noted each wrestler’s placements at NCAAs, or highest finish, if applicable) Cornell’s Vito Arujau (NCAA 1ST,3RD, 4TH) Lehigh’s Malyke Hines (R12, R16) Harvard’s Phil Conigliaro (R12, R16) Binghamton’s Jacob Nolan (R16) Army’s Ben Pasiuk (R16) Penn’s Michael Colaiocco (R16, NWCA 2nd Team) Penn’s Cole Urbas Lou Deprez of Binghamton will make his 5th NCAA appearance. He’s finished 8th and has been top-12 twice. He was named an NWCA All-American after the canceled 2020 tournament, making him a two-time All-American. Deprez is one of the very few five-time NCAA qualifiers across the country. Deprez also has 3 EIWA titles in his great career. He is the first wrestler from the school to win 3 EIWA titles. He is already the first two-time All-American in school history. Next weekend, he will look to further cement his legacy into Binghamton athletics. Lastly, there are two other multiple-time EIWA Champs in this year’s NCAA field. Julian Ramirez was the lone wrestler in this category to win a title this year. He will have one more season next year for a three-peat. Cornell’s Vito Arujau has been a champion twice in the EIWA, at 125lbs and 133lbs.

Interviews with 2024 Big 12 champions, coaches, and others who had notable tournaments Jore Volk Daton Fix Anthony Echemendia Ty Watters Ryder Downey Keegan O'Toole Parker Keckeisen Tanner Sloan Yonger Bastida Kevin Dresser John Smith Hunter Leake Joshua Edmond Gabe Willochell Gaven Sax Sam Wolf Colton Hawks Wyatt Voelker

The departure of Associate Head Coach Adam Hall to take the reins at Utah Valley has left a big-time coaching vacancy in Raleigh. Head Coach Pat Popolizio and the Wolfpack have added a familiar name to the staff to fill that spot. Zack Esposito will be leaving his current position as the USA Wrestling Freestyle Developmental Coach to make the move across the country to join the Pack. My initial reaction was surprise, as Espo wasn’t one I had on my radar. But the more I’ve thought about it and looked into it, I think Pat Pop hit a home run with this hire. Esposito and Popolizio are both Oklahoma State alumni who wrestled under legendary Head Coach John Smith. Esposito was a National Champion and three-time All-American under Smith and a member of four NCAA Champion teams. He started his coaching career in Stillwater in 2010 as the Gator Wrestling Club Coach and worked his way up through the Oklahoma State staff, serving as Associate Head Coach from 2017 until his move to Colorado Springs last fall. During his time in Stillwater, he coached 10 NCAA Champions and 67 All-Americans. Adam Hall has played a vital role in the success of the Wolfpack’s recruiting effort over the past nine years and helped build them into a perennial top-10 team. Esposito was a phenomenal recruiter during his time at Oklahoma State, and undoubtedly the additional relationships and connections he has built in the Developmental Coach role will be an asset to the Pack. Espo will also play a major part in running the room and will add yet another style to the technique arsenal in Raleigh. The timing of the hire is hopefully going to provide a seamless transition as Hall moves on to his new duties as Head Coach at UVU and Espo slides in at a critical time in working on the next recruiting class.

Last night, brackets for the 2024 NCAA DI Championships were released. As the NCAA selection show progressed, or people found a way to fast forward ahead, social media and message boards quickly exploded with plenty of chatter regarding the brackets. Generally, I’ve thought that the brackets generated over the past couple of years have been decent. I understand that people are going to have gripes any way you try to sort out seeding 330 wrestlers in ten groups of 33. Usually, a lot of that negative feedback can be attributed to some sort of team or family association. It can be difficult to digest the cold-hard facts when your heart is involved. Speaking from an outside observer, someone who doesn’t have an affiliation to one particular school or doesn’t have a child in the tournament, the 2024 brackets were….eh, not particularly good. Let’s talk about ‘em. 1. The system is formula-driven There is an NCAA Championship Committee that meets to determine at-large berths and to compile the NCAA brackets; however, a large portion of their job is formula-driven. Wrestlers get a certain number based on the coaches rankings, RPI, conference finish, and winning percentage and those numbers are used to generate seeds. At some point in time, this process was likely done more with human input than our current system that’s based on numbers. As we’re known to do in the wrestling world, someone probably had an issue with perceived human biases that may have arisen or appeared to, which led to a shift towards numerical data. This is what you get when you have minimal human input. As someone who does weekly national rankings throughout the collegiate season and studies results on a daily basis during that time (and outside of October-March), as well, I feel I have a good grasp on the college wrestling landscape. Are InterMat’s rankings flawless? No, I can admit that, but no rankings are, no matter what anyone tells you. Oftentimes, when talking rankings people will ask me for “my system.” Simply put, my system is “making sense.” Do the rankings I’ve generated make sense? I’m sure you can cherry-pick a guy here or there, but by and large, I think they do. Even if you disagree with them, you can generally understand the logic or line of thinking used to put them together. That’s my larger issue with the NCAA seeds/bracket. There doesn’t appear to be common sense associated with constructing them. 174 has been the hot-button weight class thus far, so let’s talk 174; as that bracket seems to illustrate my thoughts better than any others. There has to be some sort of punishment for Carter Starocci double injury defaulting out of the Big Ten Championships and relying on an at-large berth. I get it and I agree with that. I’m not going out on a limb saying that, if healthy, Starocci is a huge favorite. Most would consider him a no-doubter to receive the top seed had he wrestled in Maryland. You can’t just give him the #1 seed because everyone knows he’s great. Starocci only had 14 matches on the year so he doesn’t qualify to get credit for an RPI and he didn’t finish the Big Ten tournament, so he got dinged and the formula dictated he got the ninth seed - meaning he could face top-seeded Mekhi Lewis in the quarterfinals. You also have Shane Griffith who was injured late in the Big Ten semifinals and didn’t wrestle in the championship bout. Griffith likely gets the second or third seed had he wrestled and won. He didn't, so he dropped to the fourth seed. Where I’m looking for common sense to come in is where to insert Starocci. As someone who has looked at this weight class all year, there hasn’t been a consistent wrestler to hold down those slots from five through seven. Phil Conigliaro held a fifth ranking for InterMat before the EIWA Championships; however, he lost twice to Cornell’s Benny Baker (who was not ranked) and took fourth in the EIWA. So he gets the fifth seed? I’m sure that’s what the numbers spit out, but no one who paid attention to the college season thinks that’s a good idea! And the seeds behind Conigliaro - #6 Rocco Welsh, #7 Lennox Wolak, #8 Adam Kemp. You don’t think that if a common sense intervention was used for Starocci and he was inserted somewhere between #5 and #7 anyone would have been in an uproar? Ok, we’re wrestlers, we like to fight for every point, but the pushback would be significantly lower. 2. The Starocci seed People who dislike the Starocci seed are advocating on Lewis’ behalf to say how this isn’t fair to him. Possibly, but let’s play the Devil's Advocate. We saw the Starocci injury. It wasn’t good. All of the “social media doctors” were quick to identify it as a type that is generally season-ending. It may have been, but it may not. What happened is that it was deemed serious enough by the Penn State training staff and coaches, that Starocci shouldn’t wrestle. What is the chance that Starocci is 100% or even 95% about a month after this injury? Even if the Penn State training staff works their magic and Starocci does everything possible to gear up to wrestle, it’s realistic to expect him not close to top form. Well, with a hampered Starocci, isn’t that a potential gift for Lewis? And then, on the bottom half of the top bracket, you have Griffith. He can’t be at his best either. So, it’s possible that Lewis has severely diminished versions of these great national champions on his side of the bracket. Maybe they don’t even make it to him. Lewis doesn’t have to think hard to remember a situation like this. It happened to him in 2021. Late in the regular season, he injured his shoulder and couldn’t finish a dual against Jake Wentzel. Lewis medically forfeited at the ACC Championships, received an at-large berth and was the fourth seed in St. Louis. Somehow, Lewis cobbled together a pair of wins and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals. There, the Virginia Tech medical staff and coaches made the decision to remove Lewis, even though he hadn’t lost a bout. With memories of being limited physically at nationals in the back of his mind, Lewis may smell the blood in the water during potential matchups versus Starocci or Griffith. Remember, this a Lewis that took Starocci to rideouts in the 2022 NCAA finals. Sure, Starocci dominated their All-Star meeting in November, but it wasn’t that, that long ago that these two were extremely close. 3. 125 was generally good No weight class has ever given me rankings fits like 125 did this year. Fans, coaches, and media alike really couldn’t make sense of it and can’t seem to remember such a weight as a precedent. That actually made it the perfect weight for numerical-based seeds. Let’s see what the computer generates rather than racking our collective brains over a bunch of guys who have beaten each other. In this instance, the computers did well. I was slightly surprised to see the Big 12 finalists, Jore Volk and Troy Spratley, get the #5 and #6, but I don’t have a problem with it. There could be a gripe here or there, but overall, it’s a decent snapshot of the weight. 4. Seeding Quirks Here are some of the major seeding issues that I have as I peruse the brackets. Some that fall into the “don’t make sense” category. #1 vs #2 at 133 lbs. Daton Fix got the top seed over Ryan Crookham. Their teams wrestled and Fix didn’t go. I’m sure it was legit, Fix is older and has a lot of tread on the tires and Oklahoma State is usually very good about sending their starters to wrestle. But that fact is, their teams dualed and Crookham wrestled, while Fix didn’t. I don’t think every single seed should be decided this way, but when we’re talking undefeated #1 vs #2 seeds, consider that factor. If this situation arises in the future, someone may choose to avoid the match and get rewarded. Vito Arujau at #6. After an EIWA finals loss to Crookham, I expected Arujau to get the fourth or fifth seed. Sixth, I don’t know. I understand he had a limited schedule and didn’t have a boatload of quality wins, so there’s some rationale. As we were anticipating these seeds, I don’t think people counted on Dylan Shawver winning the Big Ten. He did so and got rewarded. Let’s face it. Wherever Cole Matthews was seeded was going to look unusual. Matthews has had a weird year. He took a bunch of losses in the first half, but notched a win over the #1 seed, one over the #4 seed and two over the #6 seed. Giving more weight to recent results, I would have liked to see something between 12-15. Up and down the rankings you’ll see evidence that winning your conference tournament matters. And generally, I agree. At 149 lbs, you saw two conference champions get the #9 Ethan Fernandez and #11 Quinn Kinner seeds after winning their respective leagues. That 9-14 level in the 149 lb rankings has been very unsteady all year. I don’t know if you really had a “good” option as the #9 and #11 seeds at this weight don’t look as imposing as say, 157 lbs. But I’m not sure anyone would. That being said, I would lean towards the Big Ten contingent at this weight, and in that range, being higher. #12 Ethen Miller, #13 Caleb Rathjen, #14 Dylan D’Emilio. Should you get more credit for winning an EIWA weight class with four bids and your competition is wrestlers ranked #27, #28, and #30 in the coaches rankings, or placing fourth in the Big Ten behind the wrestlers ranked #1, #5, and #7 in the same rankings and nine automatic bids? As I alluded to above, 157 is awesome. It’s a meatgrinder. All year I could tell there was going to be someone really, really good with a #16 seed. That proved to be the case with Teague Travis there, meeting #17 Brock Mauller, a three-time AA in the first round. So, I’m very hesitant to complain here, because there isn’t a way to reward the top seeds, there are tough draws everywhere. I was very shocked to see Peyten Kellar up at #7. That’s my only issue here. 165. The pure fan in me wanted another possible round of Keegan O’Toole/David Carr in the NCAA finals. I also wanted to see Carr/Mesenbrink. That may not happen as Carr and O’Toole are in the top half and Mesenbrink is in the bottom in the second slot, with Julian Ramirez as the third. That is actually how I ranked the top four for InterMat. It makes sense. I don’t love it from a fan standpoint. I know a lot of people are disappointed, but this is what I mean when you can understand why it was done. The only issue is that Ramirez won the head-to-head with Carr in Vegas, then didn’t wrestle in their dual. I don’t know how to fairly make sense of this. It would be easier in the Fix/Crookham situation where they didn’t wrestle at all. The upper part of the 174 bracket has left the bottom half with only one All-American, while three national champions are on top. That All-American is #22 Peyton Mocco, who had a subpar Big 12 meet and was sixth, resulting in the #22 seed. I get that this NCAA bracket is supposed to be a snapshot of the 2023-24 season and theoretically, we’re not supposed to know that three champions are on the top half and one AA is on the bottom. At the same time, you’ve created an extremely lopsided half as opposed to one that’s not so much. I don’t have big issues with 184. You have Lenny Pinto at #5 and Bernie Truax at #6. I don’t like the optics of it with Truax having the better conference finish and more recent win (they split). Pinto has the better overall body of work, so it is what it is. I don’t know that either is in a significantly better or worse position at five compared to six. Sticking at 184, I was surprised to see TJ Stewart that high at #7. He is a conference champ and had to rack up some quality wins in a league that took four wrestlers to the tournament with automatic qualifiers. At the same time, he only had 12 matches on the year. I don’t hate it because, there isn’t an obvious recipient for the seventh seed. 197 I had a few questions. Personally, I would go with Michael Beard getting the third seed and Tanner Sloan the fourth. Both have plenty of quality wins, comparable records, and are conference champions. Beard’s lone loss came to the undefeated top-seed, while Sloan’s was to the #11 seed. Now Beard is on the top-half with said top seed (Aaron Brooks). Also, I thought Zach Glazier would be penciled into that fifth seed. What’s strange is that the two wrestlers directly above him were not conference champions (a big factor in seeding), #5 Jacob Cardenas and #6 Louie DePrez. With 197 not as strong as other weights in the B1G, Glazier didn’t have any many big wins as the other two, but I felt like it was enough and, again, it made sense there. The most noticeable seed in question for me at 285 lbs was Nick Feldman at the #9. Feldman has all the makings of a freshman who is now healthy and putting it all together at the right time. Upon further examination, he does have an injury default loss to #7 Taye Ghadiali and and loss to #8 Owen Trephan. Between that and conference championships, #5 Nathan Taylor, Ghadiali, and Trephan are bumped ahead of Feldman. I understand why the number fell the way they did, it’s just hard to believe we may have a Big Ten finals rematch in the quarterfinals. Putting Feldman at #9 then moves Lucas Davison to #10. Davison has beaten the guys he’s been expected to be (maybe you could argue Feldman should qualify there). After Feldman, his losses are to the guys ranked #1 and #2. Davison made the CKLV finals in a bracket that featured Ghadiali and he grabbed a head-to-head win over the Campbell wrestler. Trephan also entered and did not place. Conclusion The good thing is that NCAA titles and All-American trophies don’t get won or lost on paper. The athletes still have to toe the line and get their hands raised. But, since we are seeding all the way down to 33 (which I don’t agree with), there’s some sort of assumption that we’re looking for fairness when constructing the brackets. With that in mind, let’s make some tweaks. Doing things “just because we always have” or “that’s the way the numbers worked out” isn’t something we have to do. Let’s re-evaluate these formulas or add different elements to bring some more common sense to this process.

Brackets have been released for the 2024 NCAA DI National Championships! Action will get underway a week from tomorrow (3/20) from Kansas City. Here's the link to the official brackets. Print them out and get your picks ready!

The NAIA Women’s Wrestling Championships concluded in Jamestown, North Dakota over the weekend crowning Menlo College as the top team led by their sole National Champion and now 5x All-American Tavia Heidelberg-Tillotson at 191 lbs. Even without Heidelberg-Tillotson’s championship finish, the Oaks would have still claimed the top stop with a commanding lead in the team score after the placement matches. Menlo finished with a score of 172 points, followed by Life in second with 138 points and returning champs Southern Oregon with 134. Here are key takeaways from the weekend’s tournament: 1. Menlo’s All-Americans and Coach of the Year Before the season began, I had this to say about Menlo’s team that had finished in 4th in 2023: “Menlo just missed out on the 3rd place finish at the tournament with a half-point difference between their final score and Grand View’s. However, the team is bringing back several All-Americans from last year. Additionally, Coach Mike Ayala was officially hired as head coach this season after serving as the interim during the 2022-23 season. I think there could be a lot of cohesion and the ability to build on last year’s success given the factors at play.” Menlo improved on their 8 All-American finishes from last season to have 10 earning the honor this year. They also had several wrestlers earn All-American status for the first time this year including Ajayzee Zaballos who finished 4th, Alexandra Lopez who finished 6th, Stephanie Chavez who finished 7th, and Louisa Schwab who finished 7th. Having these 10 All-Americans was the key to the Oaks’ team success as placement points built up their resounding lead. With Kayla McKinley-Johnson, Alana Vivas, Shannon Workinger, and Kalilla Shrive all wrestling to 3rd place finishes, they set Menlo apart from the pack. I also had Haley Narahara, returning All-American, as someone to keep an eye on this season after her super close fourth-place finish last season, but injury put a damper on her season. Despite that, she still pulled off the 7th place win to continue her All-American streak and put up that many more points for the team. In his first year as Head Coach, Mike Ayala helped lead Menlo to their 2nd National Team title in program history, and his first as head coach. As a result, he was named the NAIA Coach of the Year. This is still such a young team, and while they will not compete next season in the NAIA tournament as they transition to the NCAA, keep an eye on how they may shake up that national scene in 2026 or 27. 2. Life impresses with second-place finish Life ended up in the second place spot again this season after putting up 138 team points and 8 All-Americans including their lone champion Jamilah McBryde. J. McBryde looked incredible in this tournament, not giving up a single point and winning every match with bonus points. Her performance seriously boosted the team’s score which was neck and neck with Southern Oregon. Life sent three other wrestlers to the finals, including the other two McBryde sisters, Zaynah and Latifah who each lost by decision, and Sarah Savidge who lost by tech fall to Southern Oregon’s now 3x champ Carolina Moreno. Rounding out the All-Americans for the Running Eagles were Devyn Gomez in 8th at 101 lbs, Diana Gonzalez in 6th at 109 lbs, Ariana Martinez in 8th at 116 lbs, and Anna Krejsa in 6th at 123 lbs. While I am sure the team would have loved to finish at the top of the podium, their talented team wrestled tough against top opponents, scoring lots of bonus on both sides of the brackets, and should bring several All-Americans back next season in addition to their deep roster of wrestlers who did not start this season. 3. SOU Raiders soar to 3rd place Southern Oregon walked away from this tournament with a 3rd place finish, just 4 points short of Life in second, along with 7 All-American led by 2 champions. Carolina Moreno and Caitlyn Davis have been nothing short of perfect this season, and for Moreno, her national tournament was more literally perfect. After going undefeated this season, Moreno flew through the tournament without being scored on by any of her opponents. Her finals match against #2 Sarah Savidge was her 3rd tech of the day. Caitlyn Davis also went undefeated this season and at the tournament, an impressive 13-0 tech fall over #6 Flor Parker Borrero sent her into the finals where she defeated #2 Latifah McBryde 4-2. The Raiders also had 3rd place finishes from Emma Baertlein and Bella Amaro, a 4th place finish from Shenita Lawson, a 5th place finish from unseeded Lia Ferreira and a 7th place finish from Marissa Kurtz. At the beginning of the season, I was unsure how Southern Oregon would fare given that they graduated 5 All-Americans from last season. However, there is clearly no shortage of talent on this young team as they continue their streak of top-3 national finishes. 4. Started from (near) the bottom Last season, William Penn finished in 33rd place out of all teams at NAIA Nationals with only 1 total team point scored. This season, led by new coaches and transferring All-Americans, the team has transformed into a top team, finishing in 4th with 111.5 team points. In fact, William Penn was the only team to have 3 individual national champs. Returning 2x NAIA champ and U.S. Open champion Adaugo Nwachukwu showed why she is continually ranked as the top pound-for-pound wrestler as she pinned all five of her opponents at this tournament. She even received the award for most pins in the tournament in the least amount of total time. Mia Palumbo, another 2x All-American, finally finished in the top spot after coming in as runner-up two years in a row. William Penn also crowned a champ at 170 lbs in Ashley Lekas who had one of the most exciting runs in the tournament. As she notched two tech falls in her first two matches, then a solid 8-0 decision in the semis, her opponent, Abby McIntyre of Grand View was cleaning up on her side of the bracket as well. As I discussed in the preview, this would be a rubber match for the two, with each of them having 1 win against the other during the regular season. In the finals, Lekas got two takedowns in the first and looked dominant doing so. She gave up a takedown to McIntyre with under 20 seconds left in the match. McIntyre worked for a turn that exposed Lekas’ back to the mat, but after an official review, the refs determined time had expired at the time of the exposure. Lekas notched the 4-2 win to capture an individual title for the Statesman. 5. Additional champions and Olympic implications Just as we saw so many schools qualified competitors, we saw champions from 3 additional schools outside the top 10. At 101 lbs, Stafana Jelacic of Lourdes claimed her first national title and the first national title in program history for the Gray Wolves. The now 3x All-American took out #1 Erin Hikiji in the finals with a 12-3 decision. For Missouri Baptist, Juliana Davis claimed her first national title, and 2nd ever for the Spartans, joining the likes of Dymond Guilford. Finally, Cristelle Rodriguez brought home gold for Doane, this being her first title as well after finishing in 3rd last season. Rodriguez was also undefeated this season and represents the program’s first NAIA National Champ. Similar to NCWWCs, all NAIA national champs qualify to compete at the U.S. Olympic Team trials in April, so look out for some of these competitors to continue to shine in international competition this spring and summer.

Tuesday afternoon saw the release of 47 at-large berths which rounded out the full field of 330 participants for the 2024 NCAA DI Wrestling Championships. For whatever reason, those 47 wrestlers did not wrestle up to the level of automatic qualifier status during their respective conference tournaments; however, based on their full body of work in 2023-24, they were deemed good enough to compete at the national tournament. Before the full brackets are released this evening, here are some facts surrounding at-large berths over the past few seasons. At-Large Berths By Conference (2024) ACC: 8 Big 12: 10 Big Ten: 11 EIWA: 9 MAC: 2 Pac-12: 4 SoCon: 3 Schools with Multiple At-Large’s (2024) Pittsburgh (4): Solomon, H. Heller, Augustine, Pitzer Minnesota (3): Wells, Blockhus, Tabor Penn (3): Colaiocco, Swisher, Hale Virginia Tech (3): Crook, Andonian, Smith Gardner-Webb (2): Carter, Anderson Maryland (2): K. Miller, Nevills Northern Colorado (2): Poulin, Zerban Northern Iowa (2): Farber, Simma Ohio State (2): McCrone, Bouzakis Gardner-Webb (2) and Utah Valley (1) were the only schools to have 100% of their NCAA representation come from at-large’s. With three at-larges for Minnesota and Virginia Tech, those schools now have ten wrestlers headed to Kansas City. These are the school leaders in at-large berths received from 2021-24: 8: Minnesota 7: Northern Iowa 6: Appalachian State, Ohio State, Penn, West Virginia 5: Gardner-Webb, Maryland, Michigan State, Northern Colorado, Oklahoma State, Pittsburgh, South Dakota State, Stanford 4: Air Force, Arizona State, Cal Poly, Campbell, Cornell, Iowa State, Missouri, North Carolina, Northwestern, Purdue, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin Vince Zerban, Trevor Tinker, Caleb Fish, Will Feldkamp, Brandon Kaylor, and Michael Colaiocco all received at-large berths for the second time in their careers. They are all second to Gardner-Webb’s Jha’Quan Anderson who received his third career at-large berth. You can chalk up at-large berths to multiple factors, generally, this could be the lack of opportunities in the SoCon. Stevo Poulin (#7 at 125), Michael Colaiocco (#9 at 133), Nic Bouzakis (#10 at 133), Zerban (#2 at 157), Michael Blockhus (#4 at 157), Bryce Andonian (#9 at 157), Caleb Fish (#9 at 165) and Carter Starocci (#1 at 174) were ranked within the top-ten from InterMat prior to their conference tournament. They all needed at-large’s to get into the NCAA Championships. Five at-large recipients have already earned All-American honors at some point in their careers. Brandon Kaylor, Blockhus, Andonian, Starocci, and Will Feldkamp. Over the past three NCAA Tournaments, seven wrestlers who received at-large berths went on to earn All-American honors. 2023: Killian Cardinale (8th - 125) 2022: Kizhan Clarke (2nd - 141) 2021: Eric Barnett (8th - 125), Michael McGee (6th -133), Yahya Thomas (3rd - 149), Wyatt Sheets (8th - 157), Jackson Turley (8th - 174). That makes sense because 2021 was the COVID-shortened year. There was very limited information used for allocations and conference seeding, plus wrestlers were likely not in their usual form for the postseason. It was also weird, because there were no Ivy League participants. During that period (2021-23) only two wrestlers who were given at-large berths received seeds in the top-ten. Mekhi Lewis (#4 - 2021) and Michael McGee (#9 - 2021).

With NCAA DI brackets slated to release tonight, the NCAA released their final set of coaches rankings and RPI; both important factors in determining at-large's and NCAA seeding. Final Coaches Rankings Weight Rank First NameLast Name Team League Points: 125 1 Luke Stanich Lehigh EIWA 388 125 2 Braeden Davis Penn StateBig Ten 384 125 3 Drake Ayala Iowa Big Ten 371 125 4 Matt Ramos Purdue Big Ten 352 125 5 Patrick McKee MinnesotaBig Ten 333 125 6 Jore Volk Wyoming Big 12 323 125 7 Eric Barnett Wisconsin Big Ten 316 125 8 Jakob Camacho NC State ACC 295 125 9 Troy Spratley Oklahoma Big 12 294 125 10 Cooper Flynn Virginia Te ACC 269 125 11 Noah Surtin Missouri Big 12 261 125 12 Caleb Smith Nebraska Big Ten 259 125 13 Richard Figueroa Arizona StaPac 12 242.5 125 14 Michael DeAugustinMichigan Big Ten 241 125 15 Dean Peterson Rutgers Big Ten 237 125 16 Anthony Noto Lock HavenMAC 210 125 17 Stevo Poulin Northern CBig 12 205.5 125 18 Tanner Jordan South Dako Big 12 191 125 19 Brett Ungar Cornell EIWA 186 125 20 Nico Provo Stanford Pac 12 168 125 21 Brandon Kaylor Oregon StaPac 12 163.5 125 22 Jett Strickenbe West Virgi Big 12 114 125 23 Kysen Terukina Iowa State Big 12 109.5 125 24 Anthony Molton Campbell SoCon 101.5 125 25 Brayden Palmer Chattanoo SoCon 96.5 125 26 Brendan McCrone Ohio State Big Ten 74 125 27 Ethan Berginc Army West EIWA 62 125 28 Elijah Griffin California BBig 12 59.5 125 29 Spencer Moore North CaroACC 56.5 125 29 Jack Maida American EIWA 56.5 125 31 Blake West Northern I MAC 55.5 125 32 Diego Sotelo Harvard EIWA 45 125 33 Trever Anderson Northern I Big 12 43 133 1 Ryan Crookham Lehigh EIWA 393 133 2 Daton Fix Oklahoma Big 12 386 133 3 Vito Arujau Cornell EIWA 373 133 4 Kai Orine NC State ACC 357 133 5 Dylan Shawver Rutgers Big Ten 345 133 6 Nasir Bailey Little Rock Pac 12 338 133 7 Dylan Ragusin Michigan Big Ten 325 133 8 Evan Frost Iowa State Big 12 313 133 9 Aaron Nagao Penn StateBig Ten 298 133 10 Sam Latona Virginia Te ACC 265 133 11 Jacob Van Dee Nebraska Big Ten 260 133 12 Dominick Serrano Northern CBig 12 251 Final Coaches' Rank 133 13 Nic Bouzakis Ohio State Big Ten 239.5 133 14 Zeth Romney Cal Poly Pac 12 230 133 15 Brody Teske Iowa Big Ten 217 133 16 Braxton Brown Maryland Big Ten 193 133 17 Derrick Cardinal South Dako Big 12 186.5 133 18 Julian Chlebove Arizona StaPac 12 179 133 19 Julian Farber Northern I Big 12 161 133 20 Kurt Phipps Bucknell EIWA 156 133 21 Michael Colaiocco PennsylvanEIWA 147 133 22 Tyler Wells MinnesotaBig Ten 141.5 133 23 Ethan Oakley Appalachia SoCon 140.5 133 24 braden basile Army West EIWA 118.5 133 25 Domenic Zaccone Campbell SoCon 117.5 133 26 Marlon Yarbrough Virginia ACC 92 133 27 Blake Boarman Chattanoo SoCon 85 133 28 Kade Moore Missouri Big 12 63 133 29 Vincent SantanielloPittsburgh ACC 61 133 30 Anthony Madrigal Illinois Big Ten 46 133 31 Gabe WhisenhunOregon StaPac 12 44 133 32 Mason Leiphart Franklin & EIWA 37.5 133 33 Jace Koelzer Oklahoma Big 12 24 133 33 Gable Strickland Lock HavenMAC 24 141 1 Jesse Mendez Ohio State Big Ten 396 141 2 Beau Bartlett Penn StateBig Ten 384 141 3 Real Woods Iowa Big Ten 369 141 4 Ryan Jack NC State ACC 363 141 5 Anthony Echemend Iowa State Big 12 345 141 6 Cael Happel Northern I Big 12 322 141 7 Sergio Lemley Michigan Big Ten 313 141 8 Brock Hardy Nebraska Big Ten 312 141 9 Lachlan McNeil North CaroACC 299 141 10 Cole Matthews Pittsburgh ACC 281 141 11 Tagen Jamison Oklahoma Big 12 277 141 12 Josh KoderhandNavy EIWA 273 141 13 Tom Crook Virginia Te ACC 222 141 14 Jordan Titus West Virgi Big 12 216.5 141 14 Josh Edmond Missouri Big 12 216.5 141 16 Wyatt Henson Lock HavenMAC 216 141 17 Jesse Vasquez Arizona StaPac 12 207.5 141 18 Mitch Moore Rutgers Big Ten 187 141 19 CJ Composto PennsylvanEIWA 179 141 20 Cleveland Belton Oregon StaPac 12 167 141 21 Malyke Hines Lehigh EIWA 166.5 141 22 Vince Cornella Cornell EIWA 144 141 23 Clay Carlson South Dako Big 12 133 141 24 Dylan Chappell Bucknell EIWA 107 141 25 Vance Vombaur MinnesotaBig Ten 101.5 141 26 Danny Pucino Illinois Big Ten 88.5 141 27 Danny Fongaro Indiana Big Ten 76.5 141 28 Jordan Hamdan Michigan SBig Ten 60 141 29 Kal Miller Maryland Big Ten 58 141 30 Isaiah Powe Chattanoo SoCon 51.5 141 31 Haiden Drury Utah ValleyBig 12 40.5 141 32 Kai Owen Columbia EIWA 37 141 33 Cole Brooks Wyoming Big 12 24 149 1 Ridge Lovett Nebraska Big Ten 393 149 2 Kyle Parco Arizona StaPac 12 381 149 3 Jackson Arrington NC State ACC 371 149 4 Caleb Henson Virginia Te ACC 364 149 5 Austin Gomez Michigan Big Ten 350 149 6 Ty Watters West Virgi Big 12 335 149 7 Tyler Kasak Penn StateBig Ten 321 149 8 Casey Swiderski Iowa State Big 12 302 149 9 Chance Lamer Cal Poly Pac 12 296 149 10 Caleb Rathjen Iowa Big Ten 283 149 11 Ethen Miller Maryland Big Ten 274 149 12 Dylan D`Emilio Ohio State Big Ten 266 149 13 Jordan Williams Oklahoma Big 12 258 149 14 Jaden Abas Stanford Pac 12 244 149 15 Graham Rooks Indiana Big Ten 204.5 149 16 Joseph Zargo Wisconsin Big Ten 199 149 17 Corbyn Munson Central Mi MAC 192.5 149 18 Ethan Fernandez Cornell EIWA 184.5 149 19 Willie McDougaldOklahoma Big 12 181.5 149 20 Cody Bond Appalachia SoCon 136.5 149 21 Gabe Willochell Wyoming Big 12 135.5 149 22 Quinn Kinner Rider MAC 122 149 23 Drew Roberts MinnesotaBig Ten 120.5 149 24 Logan Gioffre Missouri Big 12 106 149 25 Alek Martin South Dako Big 12 103.5 149 26 Caleb Tyus SIU EdwardMAC 94.5 149 27 Jude Swisher PennsylvanEIWA 76.5 149 28 Kelvin Griffin Lehigh EIWA 72 149 29 Michael Cetta Rutgers Big Ten 47 149 30 Jack Crook Harvard EIWA 40 149 31 Maxwell Petersen North Dako Big 12 30 149 31 Matthew Williams Army West EIWA 30 149 31 Finn Solomon Pittsburgh ACC 30 157 1 Levi Haines Penn StateBig Ten 396 157 2 Jacori Teemer Arizona StaPac 12 383 157 3 Meyer Shapiro Cornell EIWA 367 157 4 Ryder Downey Northern I Big 12 336 157 5 Jared Franek Iowa Big Ten 335 157 6 Daniel Cardenas Stanford Pac 12 333 157 7 Peyton Robb Nebraska Big Ten 328 157 8 Cody Chittum Iowa State Big 12 299 157 9 Will Lewan Michigan Big Ten 296 157 10 Ed Scott NC State ACC 295 157 11 Michael Blockhus MinnesotaBig Ten 281 157 12 Cael Swensen South Dako Big 12 246 157 13 Vinny Zerban Northern CBig 12 240 157 14 Brock Mauller Missouri Big 12 235 157 15 Brayton Lee Indiana Big Ten 224 157 16 Peyten Kellar Ohio MAC 222 157 17 Bryce Andonian Virginia Te ACC 221.5 157 18 Teague Travis Oklahoma Big 12 211.5 157 19 Joey Blaze Purdue Big Ten 176 157 20 Chase Saldate Michigan SBig Ten 151 157 21 Max Brignola Lehigh EIWA 137 157 22 Tommy Askey Appalachia SoCon 136 157 23 DJ Mcgee George MaMAC 124.5 157 24 Trevor Chumbley NorthwestBig Ten 117.5 157 25 Lucas Revano PennsylvanEIWA 113 157 26 Johnny Lovett Central Mi MAC 89.5 157 27 Legend Lamer Cal Poly Pac 12 71 157 28 Matty Bianchi Little Rock Pac 12 70.5 157 29 Sonny Santiago North CaroACC 54 157 29 Jared Hill Oklahoma Big 12 54 157 31 Isaac Wilcox Ohio State Big Ten 43.5 157 32 Colton Washleski Rider MAC 39 157 33 Tanner Peake Davidson SoCon 20.5 165 1 Keegan O`Toole Missouri Big 12 396 165 2 David Carr Iowa State Big 12 376 165 3 Mitchell MesenbrinPenn StateBig Ten 375 165 4 Julian Ramirez Cornell EIWA 363 165 5 Dean Hamiti Wisconsin Big Ten 350 165 6 Mike Caliendo Iowa Big Ten 334 165 7 Izzak Olejnik Oklahoma Big 12 326 165 8 Peyton Hall West Virgi Big 12 313 165 9 Cameron Amine Michigan Big Ten 298 165 10 Antrell Taylor Nebraska Big Ten 285 165 11 Giano Petrucelli Air Force Big 12 260 165 12 Garrett ThompsonOhio MAC 246 165 12 Andrew Cerniglia Navy EIWA 246 165 14 Caleb Fish Michigan SBig Ten 226 165 15 Brevin Cassella BinghamtoEIWA 224 165 16 Connor Brady Virginia Te ACC 195.5 165 17 Derek Fields NC State ACC 175.5 165 18 Joseph Bianchi Little Rock Pac 12 173 165 19 Will Miller Appalachia SoCon 164 165 20 Gunner Filipowicz Army West EIWA 155 165 21 Holden Heller Pittsburgh ACC 144 165 22 Tyler Lillard Indiana Big Ten 129 165 23 Noah Mulvaney Bucknell EIWA 128 165 24 Bryce Hepner Ohio State Big Ten 122.5 165 25 Hunter Garvin Stanford Pac 12 105.5 165 26 Stoney Buell Purdue Big Ten 95 165 27 Chris Moore Illinois Big Ten 93 165 28 Maxx Mayfield NorthwestBig Ten 89.5 165 29 Domonic Baker Campbell SoCon 76 165 30 Nick Hamilton Virginia ACC 70 165 31 Blaine Brenner MinnesotaBig Ten 46.5 165 32 Jake Logan Lehigh EIWA 34.5 165 33 Evan Maag George MaMAC 25.5 174 1 Mekhi Lewis Virginia Te ACC 390 174 2 Carter Starocci Penn StateBig Ten 382 174 3 Cade DeVos South Dako Big 12 370 174 4 Shane Griffith Michigan Big Ten 361 174 5 Edmond Ruth Illinois Big Ten 358 174 6 Rocco Welsh Ohio State Big Ten 316 174 7 Adam Kemp Cal Poly Pac 12 314 174 8 Lennox Wolak Columbia EIWA 309 174 9 Patrick Kennedy Iowa Big Ten 307 174 10 Philip Conigliaro Harvard EIWA 280 174 11 Nick Incontrera PennsylvanEIWA 278 174 12 Benjamin Pasiuk Army West EIWA 261.5 174 13 Justin McCoy Virginia ACC 233 174 14 Jackson Turley Rutgers Big Ten 227.5 174 15 Max Maylor Wisconsin Big Ten 206.5 174 16 Gaven Sax North Dako Big 12 206 174 17 Peyton Mocco Missouri Big 12 198.5 174 18 Brayden ThompsonOklahoma Big 12 187 174 19 MJ Gaitan Iowa State Big 12 176.5 174 20 Brody Conley West Virgi Big 12 142.5 174 21 Austin Murphy Campbell SoCon 141.5 174 22 Tyler Eischens North CaroACC 131.5 174 23 Tyler Brennan Little Rock Pac 12 130 174 24 Luca Augustine Pittsburgh ACC 126.5 174 25 Alex Cramer Central Mi MAC 109 174 26 Andrew Sparks MinnesotaBig Ten 84.5 174 27 Benny Baker Cornell EIWA 78 174 28 Alex Faison NC State ACC 68.5 174 29 Sal Perrine Ohio MAC 58.5 174 30 Jared Simma Northern I Big 12 51 174 31 Donnell WashingtoIndiana Big Ten 45 174 32 Danny Wask Navy EIWA 40 174 33 Sergio Desiante Chattanoo SoCon 38.5 184 1 Parker Keckeisen Northern I Big 12 396 184 2 Dustin Plott Oklahoma Big 12 381 184 3 Isaiah Salazar MinnesotaBig Ten 367 184 4 Trey Munoz Oregon StaPac 12 365 184 5 Bernie Truax Penn StateBig Ten 346 184 6 Lenny Pinto Nebraska Big Ten 343 184 7 Thomas Stewart Jr Virginia Te ACC 307 184 8 Sam Wolf Air Force Big 12 302 184 9 Bennett Berge South Dako Big 12 290 184 10 Dylan Fishback NC State ACC 286 184 11 Aaron Ayzerov Columbia EIWA 263 184 12 Jaden Bullock Michigan Big Ten 259 184 13 Colton Hawks Missouri Big 12 244 184 13 Chris Foca Cornell EIWA 244 184 15 Reece Heller Pittsburgh ACC 236 184 16 Will Feldkamp Iowa State Big 12 221 184 17 Ryder Rogotzke Ohio State Big Ten 219 184 18 Nate Dugan Princeton EIWA 176.5 184 19 Brian Soldano Rutgers Big Ten 157 184 20 Layne MalczewskMichigan SBig Ten 153 184 21 James Conway Franklin & EIWA 147 184 22 Shane Liegel Wisconsin Big Ten 128.5 184 23 Gavin Kane North CaroACC 110 184 24 Jacob Nolan BinghamtoEIWA 109 184 25 Maximus Hale PennsylvanEIWA 90.5 184 26 Jha`Quan Anderson Gardner-WSoCon 90 184 27 Troy Fisher NorthwestBig Ten 73.5 184 28 David Key Navy EIWA 58.5 184 29 Caleb Hopkins Campbell SoCon 57.5 184 30 Tony Negron Arizona StaPac 12 51.5 184 31 Cameron Pine Clarion MAC 37 184 32 Dennis Robin West Virgi Big 12 36 184 33 Malachi DuVall George MaMAC 21 197 1 Aaron Brooks Penn StateBig Ten 396 197 2 Trent Hidlay NC State ACC 384 197 3 Michael Beard Lehigh EIWA 367 197 4 Tanner Sloan South Dako Big 12 363 197 5 Jacob Cardenas Cornell EIWA 329 197 6 Rocky Elam Missouri Big 12 326 197 6 Stephen Buchanan Oklahoma Big 12 326 197 8 Zach Glazier Iowa Big Ten 309 197 9 Lou Deprez BinghamtoEIWA 307 197 10 stephen little Little Rock Pac 12 295 197 11 Jaxon Smith Maryland Big Ten 282 197 12 Silas Allred Nebraska Big Ten 267 197 13 Luke Stout Princeton EIWA 241 197 14 Mac Stout Pittsburgh ACC 218 197 15 Levi Hopkins Campbell SoCon 194 197 16 John Poznanski Rutgers Big Ten 181 197 17 Garrett Joles MinnesotaBig Ten 177 197 18 Joseph Novak Wyoming Big 12 176 197 19 Max Shaw North CaroACC 175.5 197 20 Nikolas Stemmet Stanford Pac 12 167 197 21 Evan Bockman Utah ValleyBig 12 160 197 22 Wyatt Voelker Northern I Big 12 157.5 197 23 Luke Geog Ohio State Big Ten 156 197 24 Luke Surber Oklahoma Big 12 52.5 197 25 Justin Rademach Oregon StaPac 12 122 197 26 Cole Urbas PennsylvanEIWA 98 197 27 Andy Smith Virginia Te ACC 80 197 28 Benjamin Smith Cleveland SMAC 58 197 29 Jack Wehmeye Columbia EIWA 57 197 30 John Crawford Franklin & EIWA 54 197 31 Sam Mitchell Buffalo MAC 48 197 32 Evan Bates NorthwestBig Ten 22.5 197 33 Kael Wisler Michigan SBig Ten 18 285 1 Greg Kerkvliet Penn StateBig Ten 396 285 2 Yonger Bastida Iowa State Big 12 384 285 3 Wyatt HendricksoAir Force Big 12 371 285 4 Cohlton Schultz Arizona StaPac 12 356 285 5 Zach Elam Missouri Big 12 339 285 6 Nick Feldman Ohio State Big Ten 334 285 7 Lucas Davison Michigan Big Ten 326 285 8 Nathan Taylor Lehigh EIWA 324 285 9 Taye Ghadiali Campbell SoCon 304 285 10 Josh HeindselmOklahoma Big 12 278 285 11 Owen Trephan NC State ACC 271 285 12 Konner Doucet Oklahoma Big 12 263 285 13 Yaraslau Slavikousk Rutgers Big Ten 261 285 14 Lewis Fernandes Cornell EIWA 225 285 15 Hunter Catka Virginia Te ACC 204 285 16 Cory Day BinghamtoEIWA 199.5 285 17 Boone McDermotOregon StaPac 12 172 285 18 Grady Griess Navy EIWA 168 285 19 Dorian Crosby Bucknell EIWA 158 285 20 josiah hill Little Rock Pac 12 142.5 285 21 David Szuba Rider MAC 124.5 285 22 Lucas Stoddard Army West EIWA 116 285 23 Daniel BucknavichCleveland SMAC 112.5 285 24 Matthew Cover Princeton EIWA 108.5 285 25 Dayton Pitzer Pittsburgh ACC 106.5 285 26 Keaton Kluever Hofstra EIWA 96.5 285 27 Trevor Tinker Cal Poly Pac 12 89.5 285 28 Tyrell Gordon Northern I Big 12 88 285 29 Seth Nevills Maryland Big Ten 62.5 285 30 Luke RasmussenSouth Dako Big 12 53 285 31 Bradley Hill Iowa Big Ten 51 285 32 Jacobi Jackson Northern I MAC 35.5 285 33 Nash Hutmache Nebraska Big Ten 34.5 Final RPI Weight First NameLast Name Team RPI Rank League 125 Drake Ayala Iowa 1 Big Ten 125 Matt Ramos Purdue 2 Big Ten 125 Jore Volk Wyoming 3 Big 12 125 Cooper Flynn Virginia Te 4 ACC 125 Brett Ungar Cornell 5 EIWA 125 Michael DeAugustinMichigan 6 Big Ten 125 Troy Spratley Oklahoma 7 Big 12 125 Braeden Davis Penn State 8 Big Ten 125 Jakob Camacho NC State 9 ACC 125 Luke Stanich Lehigh 10 EIWA 125 Richard Figueroa Arizona Sta 11 Pac 12 125 Eric Barnett Wisconsin 12 Big Ten 125 Noah Surtin Missouri 13 Big 12 125 Nico Provo Stanford 14 Pac 12 125 Patrick McKee Minnesota 15 Big Ten 125 Anthony Noto Lock Haven 16 MAC 125 Caleb Smith Nebraska 17 Big Ten 125 Brandon Kaylor Oregon Sta 18 Pac 12 125 Jett Strickenbe West Virgi 19 Big 12 125 Diego Sotelo Harvard 20 EIWA 125 Brayden Palmer Chattanoo 21 SoCon 125 Ethan Berginc Army West 22 EIWA 125 Dean Peterson Rutgers 23 Big Ten 125 Kysen Terukina Iowa State 24 Big 12 125 Tanner Jordan South Dako 25 Big 12 125 Jack Maida American 26 EIWA 125 Blake West Northern I 27 MAC 125 Max Gallagher Pennsylvan 28 EIWA 125 Anthony Molton Campbell 29 SoCon 125 Stevo Poulin Northern C 30 Big 12 125 Sean Spidle Central Mi 31 MAC 125 Brendan McCrone Ohio State 32 Big Ten 125 Elijah Griffin California B 33 Big 12 133 Daton Fix Oklahoma 1 Big 12 133 Dylan Ragusin Michigan 2 Big Ten 133 Ryan Crookham Lehigh 3 EIWA 133 Evan Frost Iowa State 4 Big 12 133 Vito Arujau Cornell 5 EIWA 133 Kai Orine NC State 6 ACC 133 Dylan Shawver Rutgers 7 Big Ten 133 Tyler Wells Minnesota 8 Big Ten 133 Nasir Bailey Little Rock 9 Pac 12 133 Aaron Nagao Penn State 10 Big Ten 133 Marlon Yarbrough Virginia 11 ACC 133 Sam Latona Virginia Te 12 ACC 133 Dominick Serrano Northern C 13 Big 12 133 braden basile Army West 14 EIWA 133 Julian Farber Northern I 15 Big 12 133 Nic Bouzakis Ohio State 16 Big Ten 133 Zeth Romney Cal Poly 17 Pac 12 133 Derrick Cardinal South Dako 18 Big 12 133 Kurt Phipps Bucknell 19 EIWA 133 Jacob Van Dee Nebraska 20 Big Ten 133 Ethan Oakley Appalachia 21 SoCon 133 Domenic Zaccone Campbell 22 SoCon 133 Michael Colaiocco Pennsylvan 23 EIWA 133 Gabe WhisenhunOregon Sta 24 Pac 12 133 Braxton Brown Maryland 25 Big Ten 133 Julian Chlebove Arizona Sta 26 Pac 12 133 Vincent SantanielloPittsburgh 27 ACC 133 Mason Leiphart Franklin & 28 EIWA 133 Micah Roes Binghamto 29 EIWA 133 Kade Moore Missouri 30 Big 12 133 Gable Strickland Lock Haven 31 MAC 133 Hunter Leake California B 32 Big 12 133 Jace Koelzer Oklahoma 33 Big 12 141 Beau Bartlett Penn State 1 Big Ten 141 Jesse Mendez Ohio State 2 Big Ten 141 Real Woods Iowa 3 Big Ten 141 Ryan Jack NC State 4 ACC 141 Sergio Lemley Michigan 5 Big Ten 141 Cael Happel Northern I 6 Big 12 141 Malyke Hines Lehigh 7 EIWA 141 Anthony Echemend Iowa State 8 Big 12 141 Wyatt Henson Lock Haven 9 MAC 141 Josh KoderhandNavy 10 EIWA 141 Brock Hardy Nebraska 11 Big Ten 141 Lachlan McNeil North Caro 12 ACC 141 Vince Cornella Cornell 13 EIWA 141 Tagen Jamison Oklahoma 14 Big 12 141 Tom Crook Virginia Te 15 ACC 141 Mitch Moore Rutgers 16 Big Ten 141 Danny Fongaro Indiana 17 Big Ten 141 Danny Pucino Illinois 18 Big Ten 141 Isaiah Powe Chattanoo 19 SoCon 141 Jordan Titus West Virgi 20 Big 12 141 Cleveland Belton Oregon Sta 21 Pac 12 141 CJ Composto Pennsylvan 22 EIWA 141 Greyson Clark Purdue 23 Big Ten 141 Jordan Hamdan Michigan S 24 Big Ten 141 Dylan Chappell Bucknell 25 EIWA 141 Josh Edmond Missouri 26 Big 12 141 Jimmy Nugent Central Mi 27 MAC 141 Cole Matthews Pittsburgh 28 ACC 141 Clay Carlson South Dako 29 Big 12 141 Jack Gioffre Virginia 30 ACC 141 Kai Owen Columbia 31 EIWA 141 Vance Vombaur Minnesota 32 Big Ten 141 Kal Miller Maryland 33 Big Ten 149 Kyle Parco Arizona Sta 1 Pac 12 149 Caleb Henson Virginia Te 2 ACC 149 Ridge Lovett Nebraska 3 Big Ten 149 Casey Swiderski Iowa State 4 Big 12 149 Jackson Arrington NC State 5 ACC 149 Tyler Kasak Penn State 6 Big Ten 149 Dylan D`Emilio Ohio State 7 Big Ten 149 Ethan Fernandez Cornell 8 EIWA 149 Corbyn Munson Central Mi 9 MAC 149 Kelvin Griffin Lehigh 10 EIWA 149 Graham Rooks Indiana 11 Big Ten 149 Caleb Rathjen Iowa 12 Big Ten 149 Jordan Williams Oklahoma 13 Big 12 149 Chance Lamer Cal Poly 14 Pac 12 149 Matthew Williams Army West 15 EIWA 149 Quinn Kinner Rider 16 MAC 149 Ty Watters West Virgi 17 Big 12 149 Ethen Miller Maryland 18 Big Ten 149 Joseph Zargo Wisconsin 19 Big Ten 149 Willie McDougaldOklahoma 20 Big 12 149 Alek Martin South Dako 21 Big 12 149 Jaivon Jones Northern I 22 MAC 149 Cody Bond Appalachia 23 SoCon 149 Gabe Willochell Wyoming 24 Big 12 149 Caleb Tyus SIU Edward 25 MAC 149 Jaden Abas Stanford 26 Pac 12 149 Finn Solomon Pittsburgh 27 ACC 149 Jack Crook Harvard 28 EIWA 149 Nick Stonechec Lock Haven 29 MAC 149 Nash Singleton Oregon Sta 30 Pac 12 149 Derek Raike Ohio 31 MAC 149 Drew Roberts Minnesota 32 Big Ten 149 Noah Castillo Chattanoo 33 SoCon 157 Meyer Shapiro Cornell 1 EIWA 157 Jared Franek Iowa 2 Big Ten 157 Will Lewan Michigan 3 Big Ten 157 Ed Scott NC State 4 ACC 157 Levi Haines Penn State 5 Big Ten 157 Jacori Teemer Arizona Sta 6 Pac 12 157 Peyten Kellar Ohio 7 MAC 157 Peyton Robb Nebraska 8 Big Ten 157 Teague Travis Oklahoma 9 Big 12 157 Bryce Andonian Virginia Te 10 ACC 157 Ryder Downey Northern I 11 Big 12 157 Max Brignola Lehigh 12 EIWA 157 Daniel Cardenas Stanford 13 Pac 12 157 Michael Blockhus Minnesota 14 Big Ten 157 Vinny Zerban Northern C 15 Big 12 157 Lucas Revano Pennsylvan 16 EIWA 157 Cael Swensen South Dako 17 Big 12 157 Brock Mauller Missouri 18 Big 12 157 Colton Washleski Rider 19 MAC 157 Cody Chittum Iowa State 20 Big 12 157 Chase Saldate Michigan S 21 Big Ten 157 Trevor Chumbley Northwest 22 Big Ten 157 DJ Mcgee George Ma 23 MAC 157 Johnny Lovett Central Mi 24 MAC 157 Tommy Askey Appalachia 25 SoCon 157 Joey Blaze Purdue 26 Big Ten 157 Matty Bianchi Little Rock 27 Pac 12 157 Nathan Lukez Army West 28 EIWA 157 Sonny Santiago North Caro 29 ACC 157 Blake Saito Brown 30 EIWA 157 Alejandro Herrera-RoClarion 31 MAC 157 Jared Hill Oklahoma 32 Big 12 157 NIck Sanko Virginia 33 ACC 165 Mitchell MesenbrinPenn State 1 Big Ten 165 Keegan O`Toole Missouri 2 Big 12 165 Dean Hamiti Wisconsin 3 Big Ten 165 Izzak Olejnik Oklahoma 4 Big 12 165 David Carr Iowa State 5 Big 12 165 Mike Caliendo Iowa 6 Big Ten 165 Julian Ramirez Cornell 7 EIWA 165 Brevin Cassella Binghamto 8 EIWA 165 Tyler Lillard Indiana 9 Big Ten 165 Antrell Taylor Nebraska 10 Big Ten 165 Garrett ThompsonOhio 11 MAC 165 Giano Petrucelli Air Force 12 Big 12 165 Hunter Garvin Stanford 13 Pac 12 165 Cameron Amine Michigan 14 Big Ten 165 Gunner Filipowicz Army West 15 EIWA 165 Connor Brady Virginia Te 16 ACC 165 Noah Mulvaney Bucknell 17 EIWA 165 Jake Logan Lehigh 18 EIWA 165 Caleb Fish Michigan S 19 Big Ten 165 Peyton Hall West Virgi 20 Big 12 165 Cael Carlson Oklahoma 21 Big 12 165 Andrew Cerniglia Navy 22 EIWA 165 Joseph Bianchi Little Rock 23 Pac 12 165 Derek Fields NC State 24 ACC 165 Stoney Buell Purdue 25 Big Ten 165 Jack Thomsen Northern I 26 Big 12 165 Maxx Mayfield Northwest 27 Big Ten 165 Blaine Brenner Minnesota 28 Big Ten 165 Will Miller Appalachia 29 SoCon 165 Bryce Hepner Ohio State 30 Big Ten 165 Cody Walsh Drexel 31 EIWA 165 Chance McLane Arizona Sta 32 Pac 12 165 Brendan Howes North Dako 33 Big 12 174 Shane Griffith Michigan 1 Big Ten 174 Cade DeVos South Dako 2 Big 12 174 Edmond Ruth Illinois 3 Big Ten 174 Patrick Kennedy Iowa 4 Big Ten 174 Mekhi Lewis Virginia Te 5 ACC 174 Nick Incontrera Pennsylvan 6 EIWA 174 Lennox Wolak Columbia 7 EIWA 174 Adam Kemp Cal Poly 8 Pac 12 174 Philip Conigliaro Harvard 9 EIWA 174 Gaven Sax North Dako 10 Big 12 174 Rocco Welsh Ohio State 11 Big Ten 174 Max Maylor Wisconsin 12 Big Ten 174 Danny Wask Navy 13 EIWA 174 Austin Murphy Campbell 14 SoCon 174 Jackson Turley Rutgers 15 Big Ten 174 MJ Gaitan Iowa State 16 Big 12 174 Justin McCoy Virginia 17 ACC 174 Alex Cramer Central Mi 18 MAC 174 Peyton Mocco Missouri 19 Big 12 174 Benjamin Pasiuk Army West 20 EIWA 174 Luca Augustine Pittsburgh 21 ACC 174 Andrew Sparks Minnesota 22 Big Ten 174 Jared Simma Northern I 23 Big 12 174 Tyler Eischens North Caro 24 ACC 174 Brayden ThompsonOklahoma 25 Big 12 174 Benny Baker Cornell 26 EIWA 174 Bubba Wilson Nebraska 27 Big Ten 174 Tate Picklo Oklahoma 28 Big 12 174 Sal Perrine Ohio 29 MAC 174 Brody Conley West Virgi 30 Big 12 174 Donnell WashingtoIndiana 31 Big Ten 174 Lucas Uliano Appalachia 32 SoCon 174 Myles Takats Bucknell 33 EIWA 184 Parker Keckeisen Northern I 1 Big 12 184 Dustin Plott Oklahoma 2 Big 12 184 Lenny Pinto Nebraska 3 Big Ten 184 Sam Wolf Air Force 4 Big 12 184 Bennett Berge South Dako 5 Big 12 184 Bernie Truax Penn State 6 Big Ten 184 Isaiah Salazar Minnesota 7 Big Ten 184 Colton Hawks Missouri 8 Big 12 184 Trey Munoz Oregon Sta 9 Pac 12 184 Dylan Fishback NC State 10 ACC 184 Will Feldkamp Iowa State 11 Big 12 184 Chris Foca Cornell 12 EIWA 184 Jaden Bullock Michigan 13 Big Ten 184 Ryder Rogotzke Ohio State 14 Big Ten 184 Aaron Ayzerov Columbia 15 EIWA 184 Nate Dugan Princeton 16 EIWA 184 Reece Heller Pittsburgh 17 ACC 184 Jacob Nolan Binghamto 18 EIWA 184 James Conway Franklin & 19 EIWA 184 Dennis Robin West Virgi 20 Big 12 184 Layne MalczewskMichigan S 21 Big Ten 184 Shane Liegel Wisconsin 22 Big Ten 184 Maximus Hale Pennsylvan 23 EIWA 184 Cameron Pine Clarion 24 MAC 184 Gavin Kane North Caro 25 ACC 184 David Key Navy 26 EIWA 184 Jha`Quan Anderson Gardner-W 27 SoCon 184 Tony Negron Arizona Sta 28 Pac 12 184 Jacob ArmstrongUtah Valley 29 Big 12 184 Roman Rogotzke Indiana 30 Big Ten 184 Caleb Hopkins Campbell 31 SoCon 184 Anthony D`Alesio LIU 32 EIWA 184 Brian Soldano Rutgers 33 Big Ten 197 Aaron Brooks Penn State 1 Big Ten 197 Tanner Sloan South Dako 2 Big 12 197 Jacob Cardenas Cornell 3 EIWA 197 Michael Beard Lehigh 4 EIWA 197 Trent Hidlay NC State 5 ACC 197 Lou Deprez Binghamto 6 EIWA 197 Jaxon Smith Maryland 7 Big Ten 197 Silas Allred Nebraska 8 Big Ten 197 Stephen Buchanan Oklahoma 9 Big 12 197 Zach Glazier Iowa 10 Big Ten 197 Luke Stout Princeton 11 EIWA 197 Cole Urbas Pennsylvan 12 EIWA 197 Luke Geog Ohio State 13 Big Ten 197 John Poznanski Rutgers 14 Big Ten 197 Evan Bockman Utah Valley 15 Big 12 197 Joseph Novak Wyoming 16 Big 12 197 Max Shaw North Caro 17 ACC 197 Garrett Joles Minnesota 18 Big Ten 197 Andy Smith Virginia Te 19 ACC 197 stephen little Little Rock 20 Pac 12 197 Nikolas Stemmet Stanford 21 Pac 12 197 Levi Hopkins Campbell 22 SoCon 197 Wyatt Voelker Northern I 23 Big 12 197 Jack WehmeyerColumbia 24 EIWA 197 Sam Mitchell Buffalo 25 MAC 197 Benjamin Smith Cleveland S 26 MAC 197 Justin Rademach Oregon Sta 27 Pac 12 197 Mac Stout Pittsburgh 28 ACC 197 Luke Surber Oklahoma 29 Big 12 197 Evan Bates Northwest 30 Big Ten 197 Krystian Kinsey Virginia 31 ACC 197 John Crawford Franklin & 32 EIWA 197 Logan Deacetis Bucknell 33 EIWA 285 Greg Kerkvliet Penn State 1 Big Ten 285 Yonger Bastida Iowa State 2 Big 12 285 Nathan Taylor Lehigh 3 EIWA 285 Zach Elam Missouri 4 Big 12 285 Dayton Pitzer Pittsburgh 5 ACC 285 Nick Feldman Ohio State 6 Big Ten 285 Lucas Davison Michigan 7 Big Ten 285 Konner Doucet Oklahoma 8 Big 12 285 Josh HeindselmOklahoma 9 Big 12 285 Wyatt HendricksoAir Force 10 Big 12 285 Owen Trephan NC State 11 ACC 285 Lewis Fernandes Cornell 12 EIWA 285 Yaraslau Slavikousk Rutgers 13 Big Ten 285 Grady Griess Navy 14 EIWA 285 Cory Day Binghamto 15 EIWA 285 Matthew Cover Princeton 16 EIWA 285 Taye Ghadiali Campbell 17 SoCon 285 Hunter Catka Virginia Te 18 ACC 285 Boone McDermotOregon Sta 19 Pac 12 285 Daniel BucknavichCleveland S 20 MAC 285 Dorian Crosby Bucknell 21 EIWA 285 David Szuba Rider 22 MAC 285 Bradley Hill Iowa 23 Big Ten 285 Lucas Stoddard Army West 24 EIWA 285 Michael Wolfgram West Virgi 25 Big 12 285 Keaton Kluever Hofstra 26 EIWA 285 Bennett Tabor Minnesota 27 Big Ten 285 Nick Willham Indiana 28 Big Ten 285 Josh Terrill Michigan S 29 Big Ten 285 Luke RasmussenSouth Dako 30 Big 12 285 Seth Nevills Maryland 31 Big Ten 285 josiah hill Little Rock 32 Pac 12 285 Jacob Sartorio Appalachia 33 SoCon

Hey besties and happy Bracket Day, I hope the Sunday Scaries didn’t hit y’all too bad this weekend - I know it did a number on me. Conference championships + daylight savings + working = rough times. But it’ll be nothing compared to the fun times that are about to be had in Kansas City: good wrestling, good food, and (my favorite part of it all) good people. But first, let’s talk about the conference championships. This weekend had EVERYTHING: upsets, true freshman champions, true second-place matches, and plenty of challenge bricks thrown. 125: Champion - Brayden Palmer (UTC) The day started off strong for the top four seeds of the bracket - starting out with quarterfinal wins. The semifinals saw an unprecedented upset: Drew West (GWU) pinned Anthony Molton (CAMP). It could be argued that West had Molton pinned earlier in the match - but after a hard switch, West had Molton flat on his back, punching his ticket to the finals. Chad Bellis (APP) and Brayden Palmer (UTC) last met in February, where Bellis bested Palmer 10-0 in the dual. Fast forward to March 9th, Palmer then beats Bellis 5-2 in the semis. Palmer ultimately outshined his opponent in the finals by a 14-2 major decision victory, and will be making his second NCAA appearance in Kansas City. 133: Champion - Ethan Oakley (APP) The 133lb bracket was (in my opinion) the most difficult - because of the three automatic qualifying slots. So if you lost one of your first matches, the wrestle-back for third mattered very much. The #5 seed from VMI Dyson Dunham (whose mother Billie Sims wrestled in StreetLeague), lost in the semi-final against Domenic Zaccone (CAMP). In the consolation final, Dunham had a rematch with his first-round opponent Tyson Lane (GWU), where he finished the evening with a hefty black eye and the pride of being VMI’s first NCAA qualifier since Neal Richards in 2020 (shout out to VMI’s SID for having that stat readily available). Now we look at the championship side of the bracket: Ethan Oakley’s semifinal bout against UTC’s Blake Boarman ended in a 5-4 decision, much improvement from the results of their last match where Boarman pinned Oakley. Oakley and Zaccone had a rematch from the dual in February, where Oakley had beaten Zaccone via a major decision. The score was substantially closer this time around, Oakley winning 5-4, and ended with Oakley being a conference champion. 141: Champion - Isaiah Powe (UTC) True freshman Isaiah Powe finished the season in style - topping off an undefeated conference schedule with a conference championship title and a ticket to KC. Powe earned his victories via technical fall and decision over Presbyterian’s Ryan Luna and Campbell’s Wynton Denkins. Gardner Webb’s Todd Carter’s road to the finals mirrored Powe’s, brandishing a tech fall and decision victory over opponents from Davidson and VMI. “It’s big, I’m happy I did it and put in the work. It’s a blessing to get to go to Nationals,” Powe said. Wrestling in the Convocation Center was a new experience for Powe, with his first arena-style wrestling experience being the Southern Scuffle earlier this season. “It’s a little more nerve-wracking, but I got through it.” Powe’s influences in the room are Noah Castillo (149) and Brayden Palmer (125), leaning on some seasoned starters as a true freshman in the lineup. His favorite moment of the season? Winning a conference title. 149: Champion - Cody Bond (APP) App State’s Cody Bond has been around for quite some time - a seventh-year senior and now a two-time Southern Conference champion, also received the Pinnacle Award. Bond beat The Citadel’s Jeff Boyd, a grad transfer from WVU. Boyd turned around for a true second match against GWU’s Zach Price, where Boyd became The Citadel’s first NCAA qualifier since 2022. 157: Champion - Tommy Askey (APP) This bracket was most interesting to watch unfold: in the Earnest (CAMP) vs Peake (DC) semifinal, there was a bit of a tussle at the edge of the mat, resulting in Earnest’s disqualification - not from the tournament, just the match. Peake, a U20 Puerto Rico World Team member, lost by a 9-2 decision to App State’s Tommy Askey. 165: Champion - Will Miller (APP) One of the first matches wrestled in the evening, the Miller (APP) vs Baker (CAMP) final ended with Miller on top, winning via 8-3 decision. Campbell’s Dom Baker went on to wrestle UTC’s Kam Munro for true second. Baker and Munro battled head-to-head all three periods, finishing with a 1-0 victory for Baker, who will represent the Camels at the NCAA Championships. 174: Champion - Austin Murphy (CAMP) Austin Murphy came into the tournament ready to rumble - remaining undefeated in conference competition, Murphy presented a pin over Josh Williams (PRES) in the quarters, and defeated Luke Uliano (APP) 10-8, who went on the wrestle back for third place. #2-seed Braxton Lewis (VMI) wrestled back for a fourth-place finish, after an 8-4 semifinal loss to UTC’s Sergio Desiante. Desiante fell short, after a tough 5-4 battle against Murphy. 184: Champion - Tomas Brooker (APP) The true freshman was on top - Tomas Brooker avenged his 0:54 pin loss to Caleb Hopkins (CAMP) earlier this season, scoring an exhilarating takedown at the last second of the championship bout, ending the match with a 5-4 victory. The upset of the day came from Presbyterian’s Caleb Roe, pinning #2-seeded Jha’Quan Anderson in 1:35. Anderson went on to wrestle back for third place. Both Brooker and C. Hopkins served up tech falls in their quarterfinal matches, while Hopkins beat Davidson’s Wyatt Ferguson 7-0, and Brooker posted his first fall of the day against Roe (PRES). In an incredibly tense match, Brooker and Hopkins battled it out until the very last second. 197: Champion - Levi Hopkins (CAMP) Levi Hopkins was surely Jagger’s MVP of the weekend - winning a conference title in (I believe) five minutes and six seconds, he made quick work of his finals match, pinning his opponent, Patrick Brophy (CIT) in 0:30. Carson Floyd lost to Brophy in the semifinals 14-10, wrestling back for third place. HWT: Champion - Taye Ghadiali (CAMP) The Southern Conference Wrestler of the Year was at the top of the podium yet again after pinning App State’s Sartorio in the finals bout. Ghadiali has credited leaning on his faith as being an integral part of his season, expressing thankfulness for his teammates and the continued growth they’ve experienced as a program. Ghadiali ends the season as the highest-ranked wrestler in the conference, #9 per the coaches’ poll and InterMat rankings. Overall this weekend was a mix of emotions - we laughed, we cried, we had high heart rates, but we had a great time. I’m so thrilled to see y’all in Kansas City!! xoxo

It's hard to believe but the conference tournaments are in the rearview. Our crew is back with another edition of Conference Crossover Conversation to recap all of the important happenings from the weekend.