For the third consecutive year, the University of Wisconsin wrestling team will send eight wrestlers to the NCAA championships.
Among the eight heading to St. Louis, three received seeds. Junior Tom Clum is seeded fifth at 133 pounds, senior Brady Reinke is seeded sixth at the 184-pound weight class and freshman Craig Henning received an 11 seed at 149 pounds.
Clum will look to avenge a poor performance at last year’s NCAA championships, where he failed to garner All-American honors despite a high national ranking heading into the tournament. His opening-round match is against Seth Lisa of West Virginia. Lisa has seen limited action against Big Ten opponents this year, tallying two losses, against Bryan Heller of Penn State and Mark Jayne of Illinois. Clum also faced Heller and Jayne during the conference dual season, losing to Jayne by a 5-6 decision and defeating Heller 7-3.
On the season, Clum has lost three matches by a combined four points, one by forfeit and the remaining two to Mark Moos of Michigan.
Senior Brady Reinke is making his fourth trip to the NCAA championships. Reinke brings an impressive 16-1 record into the tournament. His only loss is against Minnesota’s Roger Kish, a wrestler he defeated only weeks before during a home conference dual. Despite four trips to the championships, Reinke is still looking for his first All-American honors.
Reinke’s first match is against California Polytechnic’s Ryan Halsey. On the season, Halsey is 28-7 while wrestling primarily on the West Coast. Halsey has proved to be a dangerous wrestler this season, winning 21 matches by a major decision, technical fall or fall, including a 10-second pin over Doran Heist of Brown.
Despite dominating his way to the NCAA championships, Halsey has a national ranking of only No. 16, compared to Reinke’s ranking of No. 6, according to Intermat. The likely reason behind this difference is Reinke wrestles in a much tougher conference than Halsey.
Wisconsin’s highest place-winner at this year’s Big Ten tournament, true freshman Craig Henning, earned an impressive 11 seed in his inaugural appearance at the NCAA championships. Henning’s first match is against Rayes Gonzales, a senior out of Boston University. Sporting a 24-7 record, Gonzales has been in contention in all of his losses. His biggest defeat was an 11-2 decision to Mark Cartella of Drexel. Outside the Cartella defeat, Gonzales has kept all his losses to four points or less.
The remaining five qualifiers are redshirt freshmen Jake Donar and Colin Cudd, sophomore Tyler Turner and juniors Kelly and Ryan Flaherty. This will be the first NCAA tournament for freshmen Cudd and Donar and sophomore Tyler Turner.
At 157 pounds, Tyler Turner will wrestle Pittsburgh’s Matt Kocher in the opening round. At 165 pounds, freshman Jake Donar will face off with Cornell’s Joey Hooker. At 174 pounds, Kelly Flaherty will wrestle Northern Iowa’s Eric Hauan in the first round, while brother Ryan has Fresno State’s Marcio Botelho for his opening-round match at 197 pounds.
While qualifying eight wrestlers for the NCAA tournament is an impressive feat for any team, this year’s accomplishment differs from past years. For starters, the Badgers are qualifying three freshmen and one is seeded. The Badgers also qualified eight without one of their best wrestlers in Ed Gutnik, who failed to place at the Big Ten tournament.
The opening round of the NCAA championships will be March 17 in St. Louis.
