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Nebraska will hold its annual preseason wrestle-offs Saturday in the Husker wrestling room. While some of the weights are foregone conclusions, there are a number of weights with a lot of question marks.
The event starts Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and will be open to the public — it will be located on the top floor of the Hendricks Training Complex on the south end of the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Fans should park in Lot 58 on the east side of the Devaney Center.
The brackets and even some of the weight classes are not known, but I did my best to give my prediction for what this weekend’s brackets may look like:
With ten true freshmen on the roster, there are some questions as to where some of them land weight-class wise this season, so don’t be surprised if some of these guys wrestle this weekend at different weight classes than I predicted.
Onto my thoughts…
Weight-By-Weight Notes
- 125 pounds — With the addition of NCAA Champion Vincent Robinson through the transfer portal, it’s pretty well set that he’ll be Nebraska’s starter, but there are still some interesting questions at this weight. How does incoming freshman and Nebraska prep legend Zaiyahn Ornelas (4x state champ at Wilber-Clatonia and Creighton Prep) fair as a true freshman? Then there’s a potential matchup between fellow in-state legends Kael Lauridsen (4x state champion for Bennington) and Abdi Unle (2x state champ for Omaha Bryan) on the other side of the bracket. After starting last year, has Lauridsen made jumps? Same for Unle who is coming off a redshirt year.
- 133 pounds — In a classic senior vs. freshman matchup, Jacob Van Dee is the guy here but he’ll have his hands full with incoming freshman Elijah Collick, a four-time Maryland state champion.
- 141 pounds — This is THE BRACKET for Nebraska. Four wrestlers with at least four years of eligibility will all be competing for one spot. Jake Hockaday redshirted last year after winning four state titles in Indiana, while Omar Ayoub received a medical redshirt after breaking his hand early last season, giving him four years of eligibility remaining. Then there are true freshmen Lincoln Sledzianowski and Davis Parrow who are coming off illustrious high school careers and could challenge for the starting spot here. Honestly, I don’t know where Parrow will be come Saturday — he could be anywhere from 133 to 149.
- 149 pounds — With the addition of All-American Anthony Echemendia out of the portal, he’ll likely be the starter here as a senior, but these wrestle-offs will be very interesting. I’m really intrigued by a potential match between Echemendia and true freshman Willmont Kai, a state champion out of Pennsylvania — Kai is extremely tall and long for the weight and could give Echemendia fits. I would expect Echemendia then having to go through Nikade Zinkin — last year’s starter during the first semester as a true freshman — in the final to solidify his spot in the starting lineup. Zinkin is a gamer, so don’t count him out on Saturday, but Echemendia is certainly the favorite.
- 157 pounds — This one is pretty straightforward. Antrell Taylor is the leader of this Husker team as a senior and will be chasing his second NCAA title. He’ll likely take on true freshman Noah Bull — a former Fargo 16U National Champion in freestyle.
- 165 pounds — With LJ Araujo suffering a hand injury at the U23 World Championships last week, it looks like he’ll miss some time, so this wrestle-off just became a lot more important as Nebraska looks for someone to step up while Araujo is on the mend. I expect a trio of true freshmen to battle it out on Saturday — Mason Petersen, Nolan Fellers and Niko Rotella. Personally, I’d do some type of round robin between this trio which Nebraska has done in past wrestle-offs.
- 174 pounds — Returning NCAA finalist Christopher Minto is the man here — he could take on Ethan DeLeon Saturday. With Minto coming off a 5th-place finish at the U23 World Championships last weekend, I could also see there being no wrestle-off here with DeLeon taking part in the 184-pound bracket.
- 184 pounds — The starter here will be Penn State transfer Lucas Cochran, but he’ll face a field of guys who will be game to win this wrestle-off. Cochran could see incoming freshman Tad Forsyth in the semis — a match I’m really interested in because I am kind of high on Forsyth. With a win, Cochran could face either Dez Gartrell or Marco Christiansen. A senior, Gartrell was formerly at 157 pounds and has bulked up all the way to 184, while Christiansen is a former state champ out of Minnesota.
- 197 pounds — The starter here will be two-time All-American Camden McDanel, but he will likely face off against junior Dominic Thebeau on Saturday.
- 285 pounds — Last year, Cade Ziola and Harley Andrews wrestled an incredibly close match at wrestle-offs with Ziola winning via 9-5 decision after a late four-point near fall. Up until then, the match was tied at 5-all and seemingly heading to overtime. Reports are that Ziola is up over 240 pounds after wrestling at 220 or lighter a year ago. Andrews is also reportedly bigger this year. The real question is whether Ziola has jumped levels on the mat after jumping levels on the scale — a question that we may get a sliver of an answer to on Saturday.
