Jan. 7, 2010
Watch Live Video of Northwestern's Duals
EVANSTON, Ill. -- For a program-best fifth consecutive year, Northwestern has earned a bid to the NWCA/Cliff Keen National Duals team tournament at the UNI Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The Wildcats (2-3-1) open the 16-team tournament at 9 a.m. Saturday against fourth-seeded Central Michigan.
A complete tournament bracket is available in PDF format at the top of the page. Live video coverage of all duals is available for a cost of $5 courtesy of LiveSportsVideo.com.
Northwestern joins fellow Big Ten brethren Iowa, Ohio State, Minnesota and Wisconsin in this year's field. Last season at the National Duals, NU led No. 4 Nebraska 18-12 in its first-round matchup before falling 19-18 and dropped its second-round dual 25-12 to No. 5 Missouri.
LEARNING THE ROPES
In the absence of redshirting All-American Brandon Precin, true freshman Levi Mele (Vernal, Utah/Uintah) is making the most of his opportunity as a starter at 125. Mele, 22, is coming into his own as a college wrestler following a two-year Mormon mission in the southcentral United States. He is 6-3 on the year and last week at Midlands defeated Northern Illinois' Izzy Montemayor 7-6 after losing to the Huskie 4-3 on Dec. 3.
SCOUTING THE CHIPPEWAS
Central Michigan enters the weekend ranked No. 6 in the Jan. 5 edition of the InterMat team poll boasting a pair of top-10 sophomore wrestlers. Scotti Sentes has been having a successful year at 133 pounds after qualifying for the NCAA Championships at 125 pounds as a freshman a year ago. Classmate Jarod Trice burst onto the national scene at heavyweight last week by winning the Midlands Championships as the No. 8 seed, upsetting former NCAA runner-up Aaron Anspach and Iowa State's fifth-ranked David Zabriskie along the way. Trice's title spurred the Chippewas to a third-place team finish at the Midlands Championships. Redshirt freshman Ben Bennett has also gotten off to a solid start in his first year of competition at 184 pounds.
CMU head coach Tom Borrelli is in his 20th season at the helm and has guided Central Michigan to eight straight MAC Championship crowns.
ANOTHER YEAR OF MIDLANDS MEMORIES
Wrestling unattached in his redshirt season, Northwestern's Brandon Precin took home third place at 125 pounds from the 47th Midlands Championships at Welsh-Ryan Arena last week, marking the fourth time in his four Midlands outings that he has been a place-winner. Precin bounced back from a loss in the semifinals by defeating Utah Valley's Ben Kjar to earn a spot in the third-place bout, which was forfeited by Central Michigan's Matt Steintrager.
Junior 149-pounder Andrew Nadhir narrowly missed placing, winning three of his four matches before being forced to withdraw for medical reasons. Nadhir's biggest win came in the wrestlebacks over ninth-ranked and fifth-seeded Mario Mason of Minnesota. Nadhir took an early 2-0 lead with a takedown on Mason's right leg and later nursed leads of 3-1 and 3-2 with good defense down the stretch to hold on.
Freshman Kevin Bialka enjoyed a quality first Midlands appearance, avenging a loss from earlier this season to 17th-ranked Bryan Deutsch of Northern Illinois in the first round and losing two hard-fought matches in his ensuing bouts.