2024 d3wrestle.com Freshman of the Year

This post has been updated with the correct season record for Smith. Six of his matches (five wins, one loss) from the season have not been entered into TrackWrestling.

The 2024 d3wrestle.com Freshman of the Year is Taylor Smith of Washington & Jefferson College. Smith was the Southeast Region champion at 149 lbs., won a pair of matches at the NCAA tournament, and finished the year with a 50-7 record. Along the way, he won the Baldwin Wallace Invitational, Jim Crytzer Washington & Lee Invitational, and the PAC Tournament. He was second at the Ken Ober Memorial Tournament at Elizabethtown and third at King’s and Ohio Northern. He was a six-time PAC Newcomer of the Week and was named the Outstanding Wrestler at the PAC Championships.

He was one of just two freshmen to win a regional title this year and one of just eleven freshmen to qualify for the NCAA Championships. During the regular season and postseason, he defeated one DIII All-American, a DII national qualifier, and three other NCAA DIII qualifiers. At the national tournament, he opened as the 7th seed against Zach Soda of New England College and won 14-3 in a preliminary round match. In the first round, he then defeated Ty Koedam of Coe 11-5. He dropped a 12-3 major decision to finalist Tyler Goebel of UW-La Crosse in the quarterfinal and then lost by fall to 7th place finisher Michael Conklin of TCNJ to end his tournament.

Smith came to the Presidents from Juniata High School in Pennsylvania where he compiled a 94-32 record and qualified for the AA State Tournament as a senior, finishing one win short of the podium. As a junior, he was 4th in the NW AAA regional, missing the state tournament by one match. Congratulations to Taylor Smith, the 2024 d3wrestle.com Freshman of the Year.