Great Lakes Regional Preview

Please Note: These are predictions of what will happen at a specific tournament on a specific date.  They are not seedings or rankings.  d3wrestle.com has seen all the results and made predictions based off those results.  We may predict someone to win, even if he recently lost to a conference opponent, but that does not mean we did not see the results.

All week long, d3wrestle.com will be publishing previews of each of the NCAA qualifying tournaments to be held this weekend.  In addition to predicting winners and identifying the top athletes at each weight, we will attempt to predict all 160 qualifiers based on the number of wildcards available for each qualifying tournament.

Great Lakes Regional – 28 qualifiers – Saturday, February 20th at Augsburg
Predicted Team Champion: Augsburg

Top Individual – Jared Massey, Augsburg, 197

Returning NCAA Qualifiers: Jake Oster (Elmhurst), Mogi Baatar (St. John’s 133), Minga Batsukh (St. John’s 141), Jafari Vanier (Augsburg 141, 2x AA @ 133 ’06 & ’07), Tony Valek (Augsburg 149), Virgil Pope (MSOE 149), Jason Adams (Augsburg 157), Matt Baarson (St. John’s 165), Orlando Ponce (Augsburg 165), Zach Molitor (Augsburg 174), Phil Moenkedick (Concordia 184), Gabe Youel (North Central 184), Jared Massey (Augsburg 197), Troy Carlson (Chicago 197), Andrew Witzel (Augsburg 285), Adam Sutter (Lakeland 285), Mark Corsello (Elmhurst 285)

Augsburg is #1 coming in and returns a very strong squad with five returning All-Americans.  Jared Massey is the cream of the crop here coming off of last season’s dominating performance at the NCAA tournament an an undefeated record this year.  Also back are 2009 champs Jake Oster of Elmhurst and Minga Batsukh of St. John’s, along with runners-up Mark Corsell of Elmhurst and Phil Moenkedick of Concordia.  The IIAC has traditionally been the strongest conference at the NCAA tournament, but the Great Lakes, with four top ten teams, has been creeping upwards in its number of qualifiers and may soon overtake the Iowa Conference if it continues to have good performances at the national championships.

Predicted Qualifiers in bold

125: Jake Oster, Elmhurst
Top Challengers: Daron Hohbein, Concordia; Joseph Norton, North Central; Josh Roberts, Augsburg

133: Nathan Fitzenreider, North Central
Top Challengers: Paul Bjorkstrand, Augsburg; Mogi Baatar, St. John’s; Joe Leacox, Concordia; Jake Denhof, Elmhurst

141: Ben Anderson, Concordia
Top Challengers: Jon Starzyk, North Central; Minga Batsukh, St. John’s; Jafari Vanier, Augsburg

149: Tony Valek, Augsburg
Top Challengers: Charlie Curran, Elmhurst; Virgil Pope, MSOE; Justin Berns, Concordia; Drew Larson, St. John’s

157: Jason Adams, Augsburg
Top Challengers: Kevin Fynboh, Concordia; Dan Hamilton, Elmhurst; Justin Skillings, St. Olaf

165: Matt Baarson, St. John’s
Top Challengers: Orlando Ponce, Augsburg; Lane Lunde, Concordia; Jacob Frias, Lakeland

174: Zach Molitor, Augsburg
Top Challengers: Matt Pfarr, St. John’s; Justin Marble, Wheaton; Ross Dankers, Concordia; Cowan Brown, North Central; Ryan Renon, Lakeland

184: Gabe Youel, North Central
Top Challengers: Phil Moenkedick, Concordia; Brad Baus, Augsburg; Mitchell Hagan, St. John’s; Matt Olsen, MSOE

197: Jared Massey, Augsburg
Top Challengers: Troy Carlson, Chicago; Tony Willaert, St. John’s; Nathan Schmitz, Concordia; Joe Rau, Elmhurst; Vinnie Sapienza, North Central

285: Mark Corsello, Elmhurst
Top Challengers: Andy Witzel, Augsburg; Adam Sutter, Lakeland; Ryan Hatten, Chicago