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NCAA Wrestling Brackets Released; Tiger Trio Ready For St. Louis Journey
March 08, 2012 | Wrestling
Senior Daniel Kolodzik, junior Garrett Frey and sophomore Adam Krop each learned their first-round opponents at the 2012 NCAA Championships, which will begin next week in St. Louis.
While each will enter their respective weight classes unseeded, each plan on being dangerous matchups in the opening session.
Frey is the most experienced Princeton wrestler at this stage, as he will be competing in his third consecutive NCAA Championships. He is currently 26-9 and placed second at the EIWA Championships, held last weekend at Jadwin Gym. He will open the 125-pound competition against ninth-seeded Levi Mele of Northwestern, who is seeded ninth and comes into the tournament with a 30-6 record.
Frey and Mele met at the Keystone Open in November, and Mele took an 8-3 decision. The winner of that match will face either eighth-seeded Ryan Mango of Stanford or Shane Young of West Virginia.
Krop, who earned one of the four 141-pound at-large bids to the NCAAs after defaulting out of the EIWAs with an injury, will take on 12th-seeded Tyler Small of Kent State in the first round. Krop went 30-10, and he has big-time tournament experience after finishing third at the prestigious Midlands Championships. Small is 30-9 this season.
The winner of the Krop-Small match will face either fifth-seeded Hunter Stieber of Ohio State or EIWA foe Richard Durso of Franklin & Marshall. Krop hasn't faced Stieber, but he defeated Durso 8-2 less than a month ago.
Kolodzik will be in an unseeded matchup in the first round at 157. The senior first-team All-Ivy League selection will bring his 31-9 record into a showdown with Maryland's Kyle John (23-9). The winner of the match will face either fourth-seeded Walter Peppelman of Harvard or David Bonin of Northern Iowa.
Kolodzik and Peppelman split a pair of matches this season; Kolodzik won the latter of the two with a 9-1 major decision in the 25-14 dual meet with over 23rd-ranked Harvard. That victory helped Kolodzik earn first-team All-Ivy honors.