County wrestlers to square off at national championships
From a local viewpoint, there’s no doubt which weight will draw the most attention at this year’s NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in Cleveland.
We’re talking about 165 pounds, which gets underway Thursday morning with a pigtail matchup in what very well be the first time two former Mercer County wrestlers square off at the nationals championships.
On one side of the mat will be May Bethea, a two-time national qualifier who holds the career win record at Trenton High and is now a senior at the University of Pennsylvania. He owns a 22-6 record.
On the other will be Lehigh University junior Gordon Wolf, the career win record holder at Lawrence High. Wolf is 18-9 and has qualified for nationals for the second time after making it as a freshman.
And to top it off from the local perspective, the winner of the Bethea-Wolf match will take on Rider University graduate student Chad Walsh, who enters the tournament as the No. 4 seed with a 24-1 record. Walsh made All-America last season by finishing seventh and was later named Rider’s Athlete of the Year.
Entering Thursday’s match Wolf and Bethea have split two matches on the collegiate level. Bethea won the last one when he beat Wolf, 11-9, in overtime at the EIWA’s.
Obviously, this could go either way.
Should Walsh post three wins, he could very well run into topseeded Isaiah Martinez of Illinois, who captured two national titles before coming up short against Penn State’s Vincenzo Joseph in last year’s final. Vincenzo in the third seed in the bottom half of the bracket.
In addition to the two Mercer County products and Walsh looking to put together one of the highest finishes in Rider history, the 165-pound weight class also includes Rutgers’ very capable Richie Lewis. He’s seeded sixth and comes in with a record of 18-5.
Another story line to follow concerns the 125-pound weight class where Nick Suriano (21-0) is attempting to become Rutgers’ first national champ. He’s seeded fourth in a bracket headed up defending champion Dante Cruz (26-0) of Lehigh. Surianio beat Cruz last year.
The bottom half of the bracket is also loaded up with Iowa’s outstanding No. 3 seeded freshman Spencer Lee and Ohio State’s second-seeded Nathan Tomasello. Lee lost to Tomasello two weeks ago by the score of 2-1 in the Big Ten Championship finals.
Suriano was also at the Big Tens, but withdrew from the tournament prior to the semifinals in order to further recover from an ankle injury.
Penn State is shooting for its seventh national title in the last eight years, but is expected to get a very stiff challenge from this year’s Big Ten champion Ohio State in the battle for the team title.