With the dual season wrapped up for the NC State wrestling team, the Wolfpack will look to continue its impressive season at the ACC Championships Sunday in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The seeding for the tournament was announced Tuesday, with the Wolfpack taking four No. 1 seeds and two No. 2 seeds for its wrestlers.
The tournament will be a double elimination bracket, with one loss putting a wrestler in a consolation bracket for third-place finish in each weight class.
The four No. 1 seeds include sophomore Kevin Jack at 141 pounds, junior Max Rohskopf at 165 pounds and redshirt seniors Tommy Gantt and Nick Gwiazdowski at 157 and 285 pounds, respectively. The two No. 2 seeds for NC State are redshirt freshman Sean Fausz at 125 pounds and junior Pete Renda at 184 pounds.
The Wolfpack seems to have a solid starting lineup from top to bottom with redshirt freshman Jamal Morris, redshirt sophomore Beau Donahue, sophomore Nicky Hall and sophomore Michael Boykin, whom all started this season for the Pack. All are No. 4 seeds for their respective weight classes.
Rohskopf has been a defensive strategist on the mats this season. In his four conference matches, the Ohio native has completely shut down his opponents, outscoring them 17-0, including one pin in his four matches against conference opponents.
The sneaky pick for NC State will be Renda. Renda’s toughest match will be against Zack Zavatsky, who defeated Renda when Virginia Tech’s 19-14 victory over the Pack in Raleigh helped secure the conference dual title for the Hokies.
Despite the loss, Renda turned it around in the final two duals of the season, defeating two top-11 opponents against No. 5 Missouri Tigers and the No. 2 Iowa Hawkeyes, both of which helped secure the school’s two biggest wins of the season.
One wrestler who may have trouble for the Wolfpack is Hall. Despite starting the season strong at 10-5, Hall has gone ice cold in his last few matches, losing three-straight conference matchups and seven-straight matches overall.
Even though the slump might be disconcerting for most wrestlers, there is still some optimism for the wrestler. Hall did compete well against his opponent in Iowa, only losing 4-2 in a match that could’ve gone either way.
The main wrestlers to watch will be Gwiazdowski and Gantt, both of whom will be competing in the ACC tournament for the final time.
Gantt had a season to remember following a redshirt season last year. Gantt went undefeated with record of 21-0 and won all four of his conference matches by a combined score of 50-22.
As for Gwiazdowski, the two-time national champion will attempt to add to his impressive resume on the season and his career. Including his 27-0 season this year, Gwiazdowski has a school-record 104 career wins as wrestler for the Wolfpack and is undefeated for his career in dual meets at 55-0.
The match that will prove to be most difficult is the presumed heavyweight championship between Gwiazdowski and No. 2 Ty Walz from Virginia Tech. Walz battled competitively against Gwiazdowski just a few weeks ago and was only the second opponent of the season to come within two points or less of defeating the two-time national champion.
The ACC Championship will be the Pack’s final action before it travels to New York as a potential favorite to bring home the national championship for the school.
