Practicing twice a day, six days a week for five months sums up the work involved for members of the 17th-ranked Navy wrestling team.
All that work went toward getting to next weekend and possibly bringing home a national title. That dream is still alive for six Midshipmen, who each qualified for the NCAA championships March 15-17 in Detroit.
Matt Stolpinski (174 pounds) and heavyweight Ed Prendergast made nationals by winning their respective weight classes in last weekend’s Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association tournament in East Stroudsburg, Pa. Navy finished second overall with 106 points. Cornell won the team title (125.5).
“We knew coming into the season that we could be a pretty good team,” said Prendergast, who is 35-5 on the year. “This is what we’ve been working toward. There’s not much you can change at this point, but we can learn from the EIWA and try to correct any mistakes going to nationals.”
John Jared (157), Antonio Miranda (184), John Cox (149) and Joe Baker (133) round out the national tournament contingent for Navy, which had an 11-4 dual meet record and its best EIWA showing since 1994.
“We wanted to get all 10 starters to nationals, but everyone wrestled well and contributed to how well we did at the EIWA,” Prendergast said.
Joining Navy at the NCAA tournament will be three wrestlers from Maryland, which, like the Midshipmen, are coming off a highly successful conference tournament. Jason Kiessling (165) and Mike Letts (174) won their weight classes at last weekend?s Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, helping lead the Terps to a second-place finish and their best performance since 1990 with 67.5 points. N.C. State won the title (103.5).
Navy coach Bruce Burnett said getting that many wrestlers from the state to nationals is a sign of how much progress Maryland’s only Division I wrestling programs have made in recent years.
“The wrestlers arereally working hard and buying into our system now,” Burnett said. “Now, it all comes down to winning five extremely tough matches next week to become an All-American.”
From the mat
» McDaniel?s Drew Winfield (South Carroll) earned All-American status last weekend by finishing in sixth place at 174 pounds in the Division III wrestling tournament in Dubuque, Iowa. Winfield went 2-3 overall in the tournament en route to becoming the seventh All-American in McDaniel?s program history.
