NCAA Brackets

Download

BLACKSBURG - The brackets and seeds, along with the list of competitors, were released Wednesday evening for next week’s NCAA Wrestling Championships, to be held March 20-22 at Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy Arena. Joey Dance, Devin Carter, Zach Neibert, Nick Vetterlein and Chris Penny all grabbed national seeds while Chris Moon (165 pounds) and Austin Gabel (174 pounds) were awarded one of the wildcard bids.

In all, Tech will send nine competitors to the event, the second-most in program history after sending all 10 last year. The ACC received seven at-large bids and will send 41 wrestlers to Oklahoma City for Nationals.

Junior Devin Carter grabbed the No. 4 seed at 141 pounds, paired opposite of top-seeded Mitchell Port of Edinboro. Ohio State’s Logan Stieber is the No. 2 seed and Penn State freshman Zain Retherford is the No. 3 seed at that weight class. Dance is seeded 16th at 125 pounds, Neibert is seeded 10th at 149 pounds, Vetterlein is seeded 16th at 184 pounds and Penny is seeded 14th at 197 pounds.

Below are the initial matchups for all 10 competitors, barring no changes between now and next week.

125: #16 seed Joey Dance
First Round: vs. Paul Petrov (Bucknell)
Second match: vs. winner/loser of #1 Jesse Delgado (Illinois)/Jade Rouser (Utah Valley)

133: Dennis Gustafson
First Round: vs. #7 seed Cashé Quiroga (Purdue)
Second match: vs. winner/loser of #10 Nick Soto (Chattanooga)/Joey Palmer (Oregon State)

141: #4 seed Devin Carter
First Round: vs. Nick Flannery (Buffalo)
Second match: vs. winner/loser of #13 Stephen Dutton (Michigan)/Josh Dziewa (Iowa)

149: #10 seed Zach Neibert
First Round: vs. Ken Theobold (Rutgers)
Second match: vs. winner/loser of #7 Gus Sako (Virginia)/Robert Jillard (NIU)

165: Chris Moon
First Round: vs. #3 Nick Sulzer (Virginia)
Second match: vs. winner/loser of #14 Dylan Palacio (Cornell)/Harrison Hightower (Ohio)

174: Austin Gabel
First Round: vs. #11 Stephen Doty (Virginia)
Second match: vs. #winner/loser of #6 Logan Storley (Minnesota)/Caleb Marsh (Kent State)

184: #16 seed Nick Vetterlein
First Round: vs. David Hightower (Air Force)
Second Match: vs. winner/loser of #1 Jimmy Sheptock (Maryland)/Benjamin Stroh (Wyoming)

197: #14 seed Chris Penny
First Round: vs. Nick Bonaccorsi (Pitt)
Second Match: vs. winner/loser of #3 Morgan McIntosh (Penn State)/John Bolich (Lehigh)

285: Ty Walz
Pigtail: vs. Nick Tavanello (Ohio State)
Second Match: vs. #8 J.T. Felix (Boise State) [if wins; consolations if loses]

Three Tech wrestlers will be paired up against ACC foes in the first round and two others could face seeded ACC opponents in the second round.

Be sure to check back next week for a full preview and once again when action begins for Twitter updates, stories and more from Oklahoma City.

ESPN’s family of networks will broadcast every round. You can find a complete list of where and when here.

For updates on Virginia Tech wrestling, follow the Hokies on Twitter Follow @VT_Wrestling