2017 – 18 NCWA Preseason Individual and Team Rankings Released!
NCWA-D1 #1 ranked Central Florida looks tough leading into the 2017-18 season with several returning All-Americans including three #1 ranked wrestlers at 125, 133, and 285. They will get a tough challenge in the first weekend as they visit #2 MTSU for the Blue Raider Invite in Murfreesboro, TN. Rounding out the top-10 are #3 Grand Valley State, #4 Emmanuel College (the two-time defending D1 champs), #5 Springfield Tech, #6 Apprentice, #7 Toledo, #8 Liberty, and #9 Alfred State, Brigham Young, and Maine.
NCWA-D2 shows several teams in contention for a title now that defending champions Maine moved up to D1. Ohio State WC and South Carolina are in a virtual tie with several returning All-Americans followed by #3 UConn, #4 Akron, and #5 James Madison.
It is still too early to know how rosters will pan out as incoming freshman at schools such as Liberty, Apprentice, and Emmanuel will likely shake the rankings up pretty quickly once the season starts. New teams to the association will also likley have ranked wrestlers after early season performances start to roll in including from UNLV, Queens University of Charlotte, Louisville, Maryland WC, Monterey Peninsula, Cal Poly WC, Pacific Lutheran, Kent State - Tuscarawas and Macomb CC. Other mainstays such as Penn State - DuBois, Penn State - Mont Alto, Penn State - New Kensington will also have something to say as well.
Individually, the #1 ranked wrestlers are as follows: 125 – Tim Sakow (Sr, UCF, ’17 Runner-up), 133 – Justus Griffith (Sr, UCF, Returning Champion), 141 – Brent Waterman (Jr, Maine, Returning Champion), 149 – Jay Sheppard (Jr, Emmanuel, 3rd at 157 in ‘17), 157 – Joe Staley (Sr, James Madison, 4th in ‘17), 165 – Bailey Carlson (So, BYU, ’17 Runner-up), 174 – Javiair White (Sr, Rutgers WC, 3rd in ‘17), 184 – George Vanvalen (Sr, Alfred State, ’17 Runner-up), 197 – Maveric Rechsteiner (Sr, Emmanuel, 2x Defending Champion), 235 – Stevan Webb (Sr, UConn, Returning Champion), 285 – Jesse Gaudin (Sr, UCF, ’17 Runner-up). The upperclassmen appear to be well positioned this season with 47 out of the 55 top-5 wrestlers being Juniors or older.
Full individual and team rankings can be found at the following link: 2017-18 NCWA Preseason Rankings