InterMat Staff

Well, another college wrestling season is in the books. It always seems like it flies by and then you realize how far back November was and you remember how long it really is. We were probably in about week nine of the football season. Halloween candy was still strewn about. The World Series just ended. Ok, you get my point. We go to witness all the heartbreak and triumph. We started out with 17-year-old high school kids tearing up open tournaments and ended with teammates making history by both winning their fourth title. Personally, I thought it was an excellent season with a final tournament to match. So, let's talk about it! 15 years from now, you look back and think about the 2023-2024 season, what’s gonna stick out to you? Dysen Gould Well, the Brock Hardy incident certainly “sticks out” for me right now and years down the road. I can’t remember 15 minutes ago, so I seriously doubt I’ll remember Vance Vombaur placing from the #26 seed. Or Shane Griffith coming back from 5-0 in the quarters. I doubt I’ll remember Parker Keckeisen going bonus all the way through. Or the Chairgate incident between Mekhi Lewis and Ben Pasiuk. I probably won’t recall Mason Beckman making Daniel Cormier nearly quit on live television. Hopefully, I’ll forget Virginia Tech ruining the perfect Jagger Night record. But I will remember that spladle for the rest of my life. Who never technically won NCAA’s but is a national champion in the Jagger personal record book? Rhino That would be you, my friend. You’re a great man. I drunkenly called you on Christmas Eve last year and you loved it. But also, Peyton Robb for what he went through just to come back this year and get on the podium again. And Trent Hidlay for being not only a beast but everything you want in a wrestler and teammate. Austin Gomez for never giving up on his dreams and never holding back out there on the mat. Now he’s earned a trip to the Olympics this summer because of it. And Kevin Claunch for having the guts to wear a sun hat. All champions in my book. How much are we booing Fix at the Olympic Team Trials? Personally, I'm trying to sound like the ghost of 2nd places past every time he steps on the mat. Thicccolas Oh, come on now. I’m probably as guilty as anyone is when it comes to goofing on his longevity, but it’s all in fun. The man is an exceptional wrestler. Over a seven-year run, Daton has five conferences, five AA’s, four finals appearances, multiple Senior world teams, a Senior world finals appearance, and a Junior world title. In an era where guys compete less and less, Daton Fix just never stopped. Yeah, things seemed to take a weird turn last week in all his matches. But he might deserve some applause for everything he has accomplished in his career. Or boo him. I don’t care. You bought the ticket and this is America last I checked. Which outfit was your favorite? Rachel Gallardo I admit I’m partial to the red sweatpants that Earl busted out on Saturday night to honor the Tiger Woods Sunday red. Can the Jays get 90 wins this year? Eric Asselin You do have 28 games against the Yankees and Boston. I’m sure you can conjure up 62 more wins somewhere. Daniel Vogelbach is worth at least ten wins by himself. Will Danny Burgers be an All-Star this year? IndianaMat You just saw me say the guy will lead Toronto to 90 wins. I’m expecting MVP votes. Which school with a coaching opening is the best job? Luke Wise I feel it’s pretty even between CMU and Buffalo with the slight edge to CMU. I just hope both schools give their best effort in looking for the next guy. With so many great coaches in the land and so few D1 jobs, you have more than enough candidates. Hire the guy who is the best fit and not because he went undefeated in his career or something. That stuff never works. And now to close out the regular season mailbag we take it to the newcomer of the year and his never-ending run of questions. Once more, take us home, Burger King of Kings. Who's the coolest wrestling person you've interacted with on Twitter? Old School Wrestling Clips. His rizz level is Anakin Skywalker class. I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you save my unanswered questions, or do you need me to resubmit? It would behoove you to resubmit them. Who are you going to challenge in street league 2024? Not Jesse Mendez. Possibly Hijo de JL Vice. Idiot troll, I bet he says hi to my face. Favorite delay/challenge brick of the tournament? I loved all the delays in the 133 final. I don’t care who knows it. I‘m sure it was awful in the arena but it was perfect from the couch. First off, we were only the third match in so the crowd was properly buzzed to just be raucous. Add in all the online takes and opinions and the fact that this is a common occurrence in Fix matches and it was pure anarchy. Well, that’s going to do it for this week’s bag. Soon I’ll pick the third annual All-Jagger team that still has no actual criteria. Hey, it’s the highest honor we got.

Blackwell

Santa Cruz Valley Union

Junction City

News broke today out of Buffalo, New York today that John Stutzman will not return as the head coach at the University at Buffalo. Stutzman, a UB alum, had led Buffalo since the 2013-14 campaign. During his tenure as head coach, Stutzman went 89-109 in dual meets and sent 25 wrestlers to the NCAA Championships. Four of his wrestlers earned MAC Championships. This year Buffalo went 10-12 in duals and finished fifth in the conference. Two Bulls wrestlers, Nick Stampoulos and Sam Mitchell, qualified for nationals; Mitchell went 1-2 while Stampoulos went 0-2. Buffalo logged quality wins over Lock Haven, Ohio, and Clarion, but also suffered losses to Long Island, SIU Edwardsville, and Chattanooga. Stutzman’s best season in Buffalo came in 2018-19 when the Bulls finished second in the MAC, sending six wrestlers to nationals and crowning two conference champions. For his efforts, Stutzman was named the MAC Coach of the Year. That season, Buffalo notched 12 dual wins, a total they would match in the 2021-22 season, as well. Prior to taking the Buffalo job, Stuztman amassed a 97-56-1 record at Bloomsburg and coached three All-Americans. With an opening at Buffalo, there are now two head coaching vacancies in the MAC as Central Michigan is looking for a successor to Tom Borrelli.

NEWTON, Iowa — WIN Magazine has opened the voting for the 2024 WIN Magazine/Culture House Dan Hodge Trophy, presented by ASICS. The five finalists are the four undefeated NCAA Division I national champions — Levi Haines (157, Penn State), Parker Keckeisen (184, Northern Iowa), Aaron Brooks (197, Penn State) and Greg Kerkvliet (HWT, Penn State) — and Penn State’s Carter Starocci, who was 17-2 at 174 pounds with his only two losses being injury defaults at the Big Ten tournament. The Hodge Trophy Fan Vote starts today at www.WIN-magazine.com and goes until Friday, March 29 at 5 pm CST. The winner of the fan vote gets five first-place Hodge votes. The Hodge Trophy Voting Committee is made up of all past winners of the award, each getting one vote for each year they won the Hodge; several national wrestling media members; several retired college coaches from different regions and a representative of each national wrestling organization. The winner will be announced on Monday, April 1 at 12:00 pm CST. Long known as the “Heisman Trophy of wrestling” and given to the sport’s most dominant collegian, the criteria for the award includes a wrestler’s record, dominance/bonus-point percentage, quality of competition and sportsmanship. Haines, a sophomore, went 23-0 and scored bonus points in 65% of his matches. The senior Starocci, a four-time NCAA champ, also had a 65% bonus-point percentage. Keckeisen, a junior, finished with the most wins of the finalists, going 31-0 with a bonus-point percentage of 90%. Four-time champ Brooks, a senior, edged out Keckeisen for the highest bonus-point percentage of the group, at 91% in his 22-0 campaign. Kerkvliet is a senior who finished 20-0 and had a 70% bonus-point percentage. The award is named after Dan Hodge, the late three-time NCAA champion who wrestled at Oklahoma from 1955-1957. Hodge went 46-0 over his three-year career, pinning 36 of 46 opponents and was never taken down in college. He is still the only wrestler ever to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. WIN Magazine will officially present the award at the team’s spring wrestling banquet and again publicly at a football game this fall. For more information on the award, as well as a list of past winners and the announcement story from each year, go to www.WIN-magazine.com. Fans can vote here

The 2023-24 season is in the record books, but before moving on, it’s time to salute the top performers in each conference. We’ll start with the Big 12 conference. Big 12 Wrestler of the Year: Parker Keckeisen (Northern Iowa) Only four wrestlers finished the 2023-24 campaign as undefeated national champions and three of them wore Penn State singlets. The other? Northern Iowa’s Parker Keckeisen the winner of the 184 lb bracket. Keckeisen has been excellent for his entire career at Northern Iowa, but also turned it into another gear this season. At the NCAA Championships, Keckeisen was the only wrestler to notch bonus points in every one of his matches. In the NCAA finals, he majored Oklahoma State’s Dustin Plott, an opponent who earned bonus points in every one of his pre-finals matches. For the year, Keckeisen tallied bonus points in over 90% of his matches. That total has put him right in the middle of the Hodge Trophy race. Keckeisen’s NCAA finals win over Plott was his third of the year over the Oklahoma State star and his second that included bonus points. The first of those two major decisions came in the Big 12 finals, where Keckeisen captured his fourth consecutive Big 12 crown. During the regular season, Keckeisen was selected to compete in the NWCA All-Star match. There he edged new Penn State wrestler Bernie Truax in front of Truax’s home crowd and he had to mount a comeback to get the victory. Just over a week later, Keckeisen went out to Vegas for the CKLV Invitational. In Vegas, he dominated the field with bonus points in four of five matches to capture the title. Just to make the finals, Keckeisen needed to defeat two returning All-Americans. For his career, Keckeisen is now 104-5 with four All-American finishes. He was second in 2023 and third in each of his first two seasons. During the 2023 and 2024 NCAA Tournaments, Keckeisen was given the number one seed. Keckeisen has twice made the CKLV finals - winning in 2023. He’ll head into his final year of eligibility a winner of 31 straight and 51 of his last 52 matches. Honorable Mention: David Carr (Iowa State) Big 12 Freshman of the Year: Ty Watters (West Virginia) From day one of the 2023-24 season, true freshman Ty Watters was West Virginia’s starter at 149 lbs. Right away, Watters showed that he had plenty of potential, as he earned a win over returning national qualifier Tom Crook at the Southeast Open. Watters also displayed early in the season his propensity for pins. He secured falls in seven of his first eight duals - a streak that preceded the Midlands Championships. At the Midlands, Watters made the championship finals and helped lead the Mountaineers to a third-place finish, as a team. Down the homestretch, Watters won six of his final seven duals. In the postseason, Watters became only the fourth WVU wrestler to win a conference title since the move to the Big 12. He also was the first freshman conference champion since Brandon Rader in 2006. His performance at the Big 12 Championships provided him with the #5 seed in Kansas City. At his first NCAA Tournament, Watters avenged a regular season loss to Willie McDougald to make the quarterfinals opposite Virginia Tech’s Caleb Henson. Henson defeated Watters and went on to win the national title - he was responsible for two of his six losses on the year. After the Henson loss, Watters clinched All-American status with a second-period fall over past AA Jaden Abas (Stanford). In his next contest, Watters avenged yet another regular season loss by majoring Iowa State’s Casey Swiderski. To lock up a top-four finish, Watters also pinned four-time All-American Kyle Parco (Arizona State). Watters went on to finish fourth in the national which is the highest by a WVU wrestler since 2015. Honorable Mention: Bennett Berge (South Dakota State Big 12 Coach of the Year: Damion Hahn (South Dakota State) South Dakota State started the 2023-24 campaign with wins over three non-DI foes before suffering close losses to Big Ten opponents Minnesota and Nebraska. After that stretch, Damion Hahn’s team reeled off nine straight wins - a streak that included a win over Michigan, along with Navy and Oklahoma. After a pair of losses, the Jackrabbits ended the year by crushing rival North Dakota State, 34-6. At the Big 12 Championships, South Dakota State finished third with 122 points. It was the first time SDSU had scored over 100 points at the Big 12 meet and tied a program-best with their finish. The Jackrabbits also crowned a pair of champions, Cade DeVos (174) and Tanner Sloan (197). It was the first time since the 2018 tournament that SDSU had multiple champions. Hahn’s team also finished above a Missouri squad that had won the previous two Big 12 tournaments. In Kansas City, South Dakota State set a new program record with four DI All-Americans. DeVos and Sloan made the podium, along with Tanner Jordan and freshman Bennett Berge. That was good enough for a 13th-place finish, which was one spot short of another program high. Honorable Mention: Kevin Dresser (Iowa State) Previous Award Winners Big 12 Wrestler of the Year 2023: Andrew Alirez (Northern Colorado) 2022: Keegan O’Toole (Missouri) Big 12 Freshman of the Year 2023: Michael Caliendo (North Dakota State) 2022: Willie McDougald (Oklahoma) Big 12 Coach of the Year 2023: Sam Barber (Air Force) 2022: Brian Smith (Missouri)

Colquitt County

Southeast Polk

Franklin Regional

Connellsville

Massillon Perry

Riverside

Lake Highland Prep

Central Valley

Central Bucks East

Cherry Hill West

Carrollton

Mapleton

Central York

Pocono Mountain East

Mentor

Dallastown

Council Rock South

Cape Fear