LARAMIE — With the NCAA Championships set to begin this week, the University of Wyoming will send six wrestlers to compete on the national stage.
The tournament will be held March 19-21 at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.
Joey Novak leads the Cowboys as the No. 5 seed at 197 pounds. He will open against No. 28 Kael Wisler of Michigan State. Eddie Neitenbach is seeded No. 6 at 184 and faces No. 27 Aidan Brenot of North Dakota State in the first round.
At heavyweight, Christian Carroll is seeded No. 18 and will meet No. 15 Brady Colbert of Army. Gabe Willochell, seeded No. 21 at 149, draws No. 12 Carter Young of Maryland.
Luke Willochell and Riley Davis round out Wyoming’s qualifiers. Luke Willochell is seeded No. 29 at 133 and will face No. 4 Aaron Siedel of Virginia Tech, while Davis is seeded No. 30 at 174 and opens against No. 3 Christopher Minto of Nebraska.
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Wyoming enters the national tournament following an eighth-place finish at the Big 12 Championships, where it scored 67.5 points and advanced two wrestlers to the finals.
“In those finals matches, those guys wrestled really hard, but we exposed our legs,” Wyoming coach Mark Branch said. “You have to have better head and hand defense to not let those guys touch your legs. Those are adjustments we have to make. Like anything else, this is a learning experience. It gives us a lot of information, and that’s the most important thing.”
Novak and Neitenbach both finished as runners-up at the conference meet, while Gabe Willochell secured an automatic NCAA berth with a fifth-place finish at 149 pounds. Davis also qualified for nationals after placing sixth at 174 despite suffering a knee injury late in the tournament.
“We had some guys that were really gritty,” Branch said. “Gabe did what he had to do, and that was an impressive win for him today. For Sloan, after coming out and not wrestling the way I wanted to see him wrestle, for him to flip that switch and get a big win was huge.”
With six wrestlers in the field and two coming off conference finals appearances, Wyoming will look to build on its postseason momentum when competition begins next week.
