Opening Weekend Highlights Some of the NCWA’s Best
Hundreds of NCWA Wrestlers took to the mats this past weekend as the 2015-16 season started off with strong impressive results coast to coast.
The University of Washington went international as the Huskies crossed over into Canada to compete in the Simon Fraser Invitational. Washington’s Matthew Iwicki took the gold medal at 149 pounds in the 25 team field defeating NCAA DII Simon Frasier’s number one seed Eric Bauer in the finals by a score of 16-5.
Meanwhile high in the Colorado Rocky’s, Air Force Prep’s 174 pound Ricky Padilla secured the #1 spot in the highly regarded Northern Colorado Open, by knocking off #1 Seed Horacio Vialpando of Northern Colorado and ultimately defeating his NCAA DI counterpart John Hagey of the Air Force Academy in the finals.
Out East the first weekend dual competition found a new team to watch, as Penn State-Mont Alto defeated the Apprentice School and Temple University to show that there is wrestling pride throughout all the Penn State schools not just in the Nittany Mountains
The Great Lakes Fall Brawl had it’s biggest field of athletes ever as eleven NCWA teams fought it out for conference bragging rights. The University of Toledo placed 3rd while up and coming Henry Ford College took home the silver, bowing only to perennial powerhouse Grand Valley State University.