NCAA Preview: 184

Weight Class Preview: 184
Qualifiers by Weight

Romeo Djoumessi comes in with zero losses and titles at Coe, Simpson, Wartburg, and the IIAC.  A tremendous athlete, he has convincing wins over each of the 2, 3, and 4 seeds.  He is one of the bigger favorites and the highest returning placewinner from last season.  Not content to coast on his athleticism, he gets after it and looks to score.

Wilcox is a junior college All-American with only a single D3 loss to Djoumessi.  Half of his 25 wins are by either fall or technical fall, and he has beat fellow qualifiers Gotreau, Barclay, and Smith.  Gabe Youel followed up an excellent freshman season with an even better sophomore one, racking up 44 wins against just four losses.  He has lost to Djoumessi and Engelland, but defeated Figgins, Zabel, and Baxter.  He could be faced with a stern test in All-American Coleman in the quarterfinals.  WIAC wrestlers Zable and Engelland are the four and five seeds.  Zabel has two wins over the freshman Engelland and 11 matches overall against qualifiers at this weight.  Engelland is part of that impressive group of UW-SP upper weights and has wins over Youel, Baxter, and Figgins in half a season of competition.  His only D3 losses are to Zabel.

Moving down the seeds, #6 Coleman wrestled a great tournament last season to take 6th, and he has wins over Fishel, Quinlan, and All-American LeBlanc.  Gotreau was an All-American at 174 last season, just missing the finals before dropping to 5th.  This year, he’s beaten Zabel and Baxter, but has lost to both of them as well as Djoumessi, Fishel, and Wilcox.  Figgins was an All-American last year, but has lost to a number of higher seeded wrestlers along the way this year like Djoumessi, Youel, and Engelland.  He has defeated Baxter, LeBlanc, and Barclay, however.

Beyond the seeds, LeBlanc was an All-American at 174 last year; Quinlan is 30-3, while Smith and Fishel are now 2x qualifiers.