WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- Penn College will have four wrestlers ranked among the top eight in their respective weight classes when the action gets underway at 11 a.m. Friday in the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional Championships hosted by RIT in Rochester, New York.
The tournament concludes on Saturday.
Junior Noah Hunt, who has taken the podium twice in regional competition with a fifth in 2022 and a sixth last year, is ranked third at 141 pounds in the Feb. 26 final regular-season regional ranking of the National Wrestling Coaches Association. Also, Travis Green is fifth at 165, Kaden Ware is sixth at 133 and TJ Martin is seventh at 149. The last three are freshmen.
"We had a great regular season with a young squad that consisted of more than half of our starting 10 being freshmen," coach Pankil Chander pointed out. "This was the first time in program history that we've had two consecutive seasons with nine or more dual wins for a total of 20 dual wins in the last two seasons," Chander said of his first two seasons at the helm as the Wildcats went 11-10 a year ago and 9-12 this year."
"Though we wanted more, it's encouraging to know that our program is making consistent jumps and trending in the right direction in just 20 months. Sustainable progress is not linear, and taking a program to new heights requires an uncommon level of adversity and resiliency and that's what our young team is embracing," Chander said.
Martin, Green and Ware lead the squad with 30-plus wins each, while Hunt and freshman 285-pounder Nicholai Brotzman are right behind with 28 wins a piece. Brotzman is among the Division III leaders with 20 pins.
"We continued with hitting milestones this season by capturing our first tournament team championship in program history at the 2023 RIT Invitational, and we earned our first team-national ranking in program history. We had at least four wrestlers appear in the NCAA Mideast Regional rankings in every poll of the season," Chander said.
Also representing the college will be freshman Luke Heimbach at 125, sophomore Liam Goodrich at 157, freshman Cavin Napoletano at 174, senior Andy Muzika at 184 and senior Gabriel Kennedy-Citeroni at 197.
The Mideast Region field, one of six in the country, includes 21 teams. The College of New Jersey leads with nine ranked wrestlers, while Ithaca College and Ursinus both have seven ranked. Ranked tournament teams include defending region champ TCNJ, No. 17, and Centenary, No. 19.
"There are over 15 national top 15 wrestlers and several top 15 teams in the field," Chander said.
In five previous NCAA regionals, the Wildcats placed as high as 11th twice — last year and in 2019.
The top three finishers in each weight will advance to the national championships March 15-16, and the lone Penn College wrestler to have accomplished that feat was Isaac Cory, who was second at 184 during regionals last year. A sophomore, Cory's season ended early this season with an injury.
"It is the postseason and it's also just wrestling. It's what we've done every weekend in the last four months. The biggest key to success is to have fun, not make the moment bigger than any other event, and just let it fly," Chander said.
