This Week....A Year Ago

Now that we’ve finished the DI regular season, it seems like the year is just about over. Right? Only two more tournaments for each team. With about four full months of data points, we’ve figured out how March will play out. Right? 

Maybe not. We’ve used last year as an example. What did the landscape look like in the final week of February? How did it change from February to mid-March? There were some huge chances. At this time last year, there was some uncertainty about the availability of two of the sport’s biggest stars (Both ended up winning titles. Congrats Vito and Carter). 

Two tournaments shouldn’t change THAT much right? You might be surprised how much opinion can be formed or changed over the next couple of weeks. 

They always say that hindsight is 20/20, so let’s try to avoid looking at last season through the lens of what we know now. We’re getting into our DeLorean’s and traveling back to February 26th of 2024 to check the pulse of college wrestling fans. 

The eventual national champion at 125 lbs, Richie Figueroa, finished the regular season ranked #19th in the country. He hit a skid at the beginning of February that saw him lose three of four matches. He did show hints of righting the ship as he defeated Luke Stanich and Caleb Smith during the final weekend. 

Braeden Davis, the eventual Big Ten champion at 125 lbs, was ninth in the nation. In his final Big Ten dual of the season, Davis was majored by Caleb Smith. He later won the Big Ten tournament with wins over three straight past All-Americans. 

At this point, we were wondering if Vito Arujau would be able to get healthy or if he’d run out of time. Before the postseason, Arujau was 10-1 with a loss to Lehigh freshman Ryan Crookham.  He would make the EIWA finals, but suffered a second loss to Crookham. 

A year ago, Little Rock’s NCAA wrestling history consisted of one win by one NCAA qualifier. That changed in March with two All-American finishes and a 19th-place showing as a team. 

One of the controversial or head-scratching moments in the weeks between the regular season and the conference tournaments was Iowa’s uncertainty at 133 lbs. We had Cullan Schriever listed as the starter. From what we understand, Brody Teske’s name was given to the Big Ten seeding committee - but it was done so after the deadline, which relegated Teskes to the 14th seed. Even so, he pulled a first-round upset over Nic Bouzakis and finished fifth, earning an automatic qualifying bid to nationals. 

Future All-American  Vance Vombaur finished the regular season ranked #25 after compiling a  14-6 record. He started his NCAA tournament with an upset over #7 Cael Happel and took eighth. 

We all remember Tyler Kasak’s magical consolation run at NCAA’s. At this point, Kasak was ranked 9th and had a 13-3 record. He’ll start his second postseason ranked #1 in the country. 

Not all of these are about wrestlers outperforming their pre-postseason rankings. In fact, Northern Colorado’s  Vince Zerban was undefeated and ranked second in the country at 157 lbs. The Big 12 Championships were not kind to Zerban, who suffered losses to Jared Hill and Brock Mauller on his way to seventh place. 

Casual college fans were still probably in the dark about just who Ohio’s Peyten Kellar is. At the time, he was ranked 17th in the nation. There were some signs as Kellar was riding a 10-match winning streak and his only two regular-season losses came at the CKLV to Will Lewan and Paddy Gallagher. 

Stud freshman Mitchell Mesenbrink finished the regular season undefeated but was still only ranked fifth in the country. The combination of the strength atop the 165 lb weight class (O’Toole/Carr/Julian Ramirez/Hamiti) and the fact that Mesenbrink didn’t hit any top contenders held him back from advancing past any of that big four. 

Perhaps the biggest story this pre-postseason period was the status of Carter Starocci. Anyone watching his season finale against Edinboro knew that he probably suffered a serious knee injury during his win via tech fall. But just how serious would it be? All of the amateur detectives looked for clues in the footage of the injury and any bit of information given by Penn State head coach Cael Sanderson. Of course, Starocci injury defaulted twice at the Big Ten Championships (was angry about doing so) and ended up winning nationals as the ninth seed after going through a gauntlet that included Mekhi Lewis/Shane Griffith/Rocco Welsh. 

Speaking of Welsh, he along with two other 174 lb All-Americans, Lennox Wolak, and Ben Pasiuk were ranked outside of the top ten. Welsh, the eventual runner-up, was 11th. Wolak, a national semifinalist, was 13th, and Pasiuk was 14th. 

Aaron Ayzerov had a confounding regular season that saw him lose seven times before the calendar turned to 2024 and nine times before March. But, he did have two wins over returning NCAA third-place finisher Chris Foca. That resulted in a #26 ranking. Ayzerov beat Foca again at the EIWA Championships, but lost to him in Kansas City. 

The Big 12 had a pair of undefeated big men in Yonger Bastida and Wyatt Hendrickson. Based on 2023 NCAA performance and Bastida coming up from 215 lbs, Hendrickson started the year ranked higher and kept that ranking until after the Big 12 Championships. At the Big 12’s, Bastida bested Hendrickson, 10-7. At Nationals, Bastida did not place and Hendrickson finished third. 

From a team standpoint, Penn State was the clear-cut #1 and it was evident that they would probably threaten the team scoring mark. After Penn State though, it was anyone’s guess. Iowa looked like a decent choice for runner-up. It ended up being Cornell who was fifth in our tournament rankings. Third place Michigan was ranked eighth.