DALLAS – The

NCWA kicks off its National Duals tournament Friday with seven of its top eight-ranked

programs competing at the Casablanca Resort Event Center in Mesquite, Nevada. For

the first time, seven of the NCWA’s eight conferences have representation

within the tournament’s 16-team field, including an all-time high of six

programs from the Northwest and West Coast Conferences competing.

The

National Duals is being hosted out west for the first time under the NCWA’s

guideline to alternate its duals championship tournament between east and west

hosts. The West Coast Conference is the official host of the tournament that begins

Friday at 10 a.m. (PST) (Noon EST) with round-robin duals within the four-team

pools, then contests its championship and consolation bracket competition at

10:45 a.m. (PST) Saturday. The brackets will play out all the way from its

championship to 15^th-place matches.

The top

four seeds based on competition criteria thus far in the season are No. 1 seed

and defending champion Liberty, No. 2 Apprentice, No. 3 Grand Valley State and No.

4 Springfield Tech CC. Liberty edged Apprentice, 26-24, in a dual match at the

Virginia Duals two weeks ago.

The

pools, arranged according to tournament seeding, are as follows:


Pool A – (1) Liberty, (7) Toledo, (9) Washington State, (15) MIT.


Pool B – (4) Springfield Tech, (5) Grays Harbor, (12) Dixie State, (14) Maine
Pool C – (3) Grand Valley State, (5) Central Florida, (11) Wayne State, (13)

Colorado State
Pool D – (2) Apprentice, (8) UNLV, (10) Richland College, (16) Cal State

Northridge

Liberty

is the defending champion, rallying with wins in the final six bouts last year

to beat then-defending champion Emmanuel College, 30-15. The win avenging

Liberty’s loss to Emmanuel in the 2017 title match. Grand Valley took third

last year, topping Springfield Tech 28-18.

In the 13-year history of the event only

one team has repeated as champion. Grand Valley State won three straight

National Duals titles in tournaments contested as part of the NWCA National

Duals in 2007-08 and won again in 2009 when the tournament became an official

NCWA-sponsored championship. Since 2009, only four defending champions

(Liberty in 2012 and 2017; Lindenwood-St. Charles in 2012 and Emmanuel in 2017)

have reached the finals in the following tournament.

Liberty and Apprentice, which are 25 points ahead of third place STCC in the latest team rankings, are favored to make

it to the finals this season. A finals trip for Liberty would be the first time any team since Grand Valley's three-peat that a team has reached three consecutive finals.

Keep tabs

on the NCWA National Duals live at https://arena.flowrestling.org, or find results at ncwa.net.