Wrestling Schedule Highlighted By Birthplace Battle, Garden Grapple & Nebraska Duals

The 2016-17 Schedule

The Princeton wrestling team is ready to build off one of its strongest seasons in program history, and it has set up another schedule that will challenge the Tigers from beginning through the postseason.

Princeton — which earned its first All-American since 2003 and wrestled for the Ivy League title for the first time since 1986 — will open its season Nov. 6 in the Hokie Open at Virginia Tech, and will compete in a number of intriguing events before the ball drops on 2016, including The Battle at the Birthplace, the Grapple at the Garden, the Nebraska Duals and the 54th Ken Kraft Midlands Championships.

And that's just the first half of the season.

The Tigers will open the 2017 Ivy League season Jan. 8 at Penn, and then will host both Brown (1 pm) and Harvard (6 pm) at Dillon Gym. The following weekend, the Tigers will make their way to the Empire State for matchups with Columbia (Feb. 10) and Cornell (Feb. 11); if all goes well, Princeton could set up a second consecutive winner-take-all showdown with the Big Red for the Ivy League championship.

The EIWA Championships will be held Mar. 3-4 at Bucknell, while the NCAA Championships will be held March 16-18 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.

"Simply put, when we craft our schedule we want it to be the toughest in the Ivy League to ensure that our wrestlers are prepared at the end of the year to do well at EIWAs and NCAAs," head coach Chris Ayres said. "We face at least six teams that finished in the Top 20 last year, including multiple Big 10 teams, and we wrestle at one of the toughest tournaments in the country, Midlands. While we have a tough schedule and will use it to prepare for the postseason, we are also part of a few awesome events.

"First and foremost, wrestling Rutgers in their football stadium will be a historic event, potentially drawing over 20,000 to witness a dual in New Jersey. It could be a record-setting environment," Ayres added. "We both should have very balanced lineups so I expect that to be one of the most thrilling matches of the season. Then we go out to wrestle Nebraska, one of the best teams in the country, as well as Big 10 team Michigan State and EIWA rival Drexel. The new team on the schedule is Virginia Tech, who finished fourth at NCAA's next year. I feel fortunate that Coach Gray could leverage his connections there so they would come up for a dual as well as us going down there for the Hokie Open. This should be a tough, but fun, schedule, and more than ever before, I cannot wait to get the season started to see how much we can do."

Here are some dates to remember for the 2016-17 season.

Nov. 6	at the Virginia Tech Open	the season-opening tournament
Nov. 19	at Rutgers	the "Battle at the Birthplace" inside Rutgers' football stadium
Nov. 27	at the Grapple at the Garden	Princeton will wrestle Buffalo and Maryland at Madison Square Garden
Nov. 3	at the Nebraska Duals	Princeton faces Drexel, Michigan State and Nebraska
Dec. 10	vs. Binghamton	the home opener, a 1 pm start in Dillon Gym
Dec. 29-30	at the 54th Midlands	Jon Schleifer became Princeton's first Midlands finalist in 2015
Jan. 8	at Penn	the Ivy League opener; Princeton ended a 24-year drought v. Penn last year
Feb. 4	vs. Brown, vs. Harvard	two historic Ivy rivals visit Dillon for key Ivy showdowns
Feb. 11	at Cornell	Princeton lost to Cornell last year in the Ivy championship match
Mar. 3-4	at EIWAs (Bucknell)	Brett Harner won Princeton's first EIWA title since 2003 last year
Mar. 16-18	at NCAAs (St. Louis)	Princeton returns four wrestlers with NCAA experience, including A-A Harner

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Brett Harner