The event will begin at 11 a.m. CT and the finals are slated to start at 4 p.m. on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa.
Tournament information and live video will be available by visiting UNIPanters.com while live results can be found at TrackWrestling.com. Seeding information will be announced following a coaches meeting on Saturday night.
Tickets for the day-long event at the McLeod Center are $15 for adults and $10 for youth. Tickets can be purchased at the UNI Athletics Ticket Office, by phone at 319-273-4849 or online at unitix.uni.edu.
In its sixth year, the WWC is comprised of seven schools including Air Force, North Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Northern Iowa, South Dakota State, Utah Valley and Wyoming. Since all league schools compete at the West Regional, the WWC tournament championship will also be determined at the event.
The UNI Panthers had won the team NCAA West Regional title 24 consecutive times, but the past two seasons No. 11 Wyoming has managed to dethrone the Panthers to capture its first two titles. In 2011, the Cowboys finished with 93 points, while the Panthers came in second with 87. Behind them the Falcons finished third (59), while the Bison placed fourth (45.5), the Wolverines fifth (41.5), the Bears sixth (24) and the Jackrabbits seventh (14).
Out of the 17 competitors that qualified at last year’s nationals 10 of them are back, including six conference champs. The six returning individual champions from the 2010-11 season are UW’s Michael Martinez (125), AFA's Cole VonOhlen (149), UW’s Shane Onufer (165), UW's Pat Martinez (174), UNI's Ryan Loder (184) and UW's LJ Helbig (285). The other four returning NCAA Qualifiers are NDSU’s Trent Sprenkle (125), UNC's Casey Cruz (141), UNI's David Bonin (157) and UW’s Joe LeBlanc (184).
Wyoming seniors M. Martinez and Onufer will be looking for their fourth consecutive conference titles this year as they have previously won their respective weight brackets in 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. Fellow UW senior and three-time All-American LeBlanc will also be looking for his third conference title on Sunday.
This year’s WWC regular season dual champion was the Wyoming Cowboys, who finished undefeated in league match-ups at 6-0. UNI was the runner-up with a 5-1 conference record.
The West Regional will receive 17 automatic qualifiers to the NCAA Championships this year, based on the final Coaches' Panel Ranking, Rating Percentage Index (RPI) and Division I winning percentage. The breakdown of the 17 automatic bids per weight class is as follows: 125 (2), 133 (2), 141 (1), 149 (2), 157 (3), 165 (2), 174 (1), 184 (2), 197 (1) and 285 (1).
After all of the qualifying events have concluded, the NCAA?Division I Wrestling Committee will meet in person to select the remaining 40 at-large qualifiers, who will be announced on March 7. All weight classes will consist of 33 wrestlers for the NCAA Tournament. Last year the WWC saw two of its wrestlers receive at-large selections.
Qualifiers from this weekend's NCAA?West Regional will compete at the NCAA?Championships, that will be held at the Scottrade Center March 15-17 in St. Louis, Mo.
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