Historic Reynolds Coliseum will host the 2017 ACC Wrestling Championships Saturday, starting at 11 a.m. The NC State wrestling team will look to defend last season’s ACC title against Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, Virginia, Pittsburgh and regular season champions Virginia Tech when it hits the mat Saturday.
The No. 8 Wolfpack (13-2, 4-1 ACC) technically closed out its home season schedule when it defeated West Virginia on Feb. 5 in Reynolds, but the team has prolonged its stay in the building by first being selected to host the NWCA National Duals Championship Series on Feb. 17 and now the ACC Championships.
A year ago, an experienced team led by All-Americans and a two-time National Champion marched into Charlottesville, Virginia and won its first ACC crown since 2007. Four individual ACC titles helped power the Pack in its 90-81.5 defeat of runner-up Virginia Tech.
This season, NC State has surprised many by turning what was supposed to be a rebuilding year into a second-straight second place regular season ACC finish with a 4-1 conference record. NC State’s only losses this season have come to top-10 nationally ranked programs in then-No. 5 Virginia Tech and then-No. 7 Nebraska. The Wolfpack has remained ranked in the top 10 itself the entire year, finishing with the No. 8 ranking in the national poll.
There will be plenty of work to do, however, seeing as three of last season’s four Wolfpack individual ACC champions will not be wrestling this time around. Nick Gwiazdowski and Tommy Gantt left due to graduation and Pete Renda redshirted this year, leaving junior Kevin Jack as the lone returning champ.
Jack has been virtually unstoppable this year, compiling a 27-1 overall record while going undefeated in both duals and conference play. Jack enters the ACC Championships with the No. 2 national ranking and the No. 1 ACC seed for the 141-pound weight class.
Redshirt junior Michael Macchiavello is the only other No. 1 ACC seed for the Wolfpack. Macchiavello finished his conference season with a perfect 4-0 record in the 184-pound weight class and was awarded the top ranking alongside co-captain Jack.
Virginia Tech holds the most No. 1 rankings, boasting six of the possible 10. Pitt has the final two top seeds.
NC State has four wrestlers ranked No. 2 in their respective classes: redshirt senior Sam Speno at 149, freshman Thomas Bullard at 157, redshirt junior Brian Hamann at 165 and redshirt sophomore Malik McDonald at 197.
Redshirt sophomore Sean Fausz, the ACC runner-up in the 125 weight class a year ago, returns with the No. 3 seed at 125. Joining Fausz is fellow redshirt sophomore Jamal Morris, who earned the No. 3 seed for the 133-pound weight class.
To close out its lineup, NC State has two wrestlers ranked No. 4 in their respective classes, freshman Nick Reenan at 174 and redshirt senior Mike Kosoy in the heavyweights.
While defending the ACC crown is at the forefront this weekend, the pursuit of NCAA Championship bids will surely not be far behind. The way that the system is set up for Division-I wrestling is there are varying automatic bid allocations for each weight class.
For example, there are five NCAA automatic bid allocations for the 157 ACC weight class, but only two for the 133 ACC weight class, meaning that the top five wrestlers Saturday in 157 and the top two wrestlers in 133 will receive automatic bids to the NCAA Championships.
If a wrestler doesn’t make an automatic bid, they are still in the running to make the NCAA Championships through an at-large bid, but these are scarce.
A year ago, NC State secured eight automatic bids to the NCAAs after the ACC Championship, tying a school record. To put things in perspective, based on ACC rank and allocations per weight class, the Pack is in position to get another eight auto bids this year barring no upsets.
With individual ACC titles, the team ACC crown and NCAA Championship bids on the line, Saturday is primed to be a very big day for the Wolfpack. Doors will open at 10 a.m. Tickets are free with a valid student ID. The championships will also be streamed via ACC Network Extra/WatchESPN.
