While many of the Cardinal's wrestlers will be competing in their first events as collegiate athletes, there are three members of the 2021 team that will be looked to as veteran leaders this season. Senior Kale'anahe Slaughter and Sophomores Chase Montgomery and Clarouly Meca all placed at the MEC Championships last season and have helped move the program forward and build a foundation for the future of Wheeling wrestlers.
Two of those three wrestlers placed at the 2021 MEC Championships, with Slaughter and Meca each placing at the event. The first to place was Kale'anahe Slaughter, who finished fifth overall in the 149-pound weight class. He defeated Alderson Broaddus's Chad Miller in a 9-6 decision to claim fifth place in the weight class. Clarouly Meca followed that up in the 285-pound weight class with a sixth-place overall finish. He dropped his opening match to the eventual 285-pound champion but was able to bounce back, earning a 14-6 major decision over Josh Sanders from Davis & Elkins. These are performances that these two wrestlers will build on and use to lead the team this season.
Mixing in with the veteran leadership on this team is a strong recruiting class looking to make their impact on the 2021-2022 Cardinals. Leading the group are a pair of local brothers Mason Kuneff and Zach Kuneff. Mason finished third in the Ohio State Championship in the 165-pound weight class during his senior year at Bridgeport High School, while Zach will join the heavyweight class. Former Seton Hill wrestler Austin Mele also comes over to Wheeling and was a PIAA AA state qualifier in high school.
This first match of the year will be a test for many of these young wrestlers as they will be competing in their first collegiate event. Head Coach Dan Ownbey is excited about that test and is ready to see what this young team can do.
"Right now, we are trying to just get out there and compete," said Ownbey. "It's a lot of these wrestlers first time going out and competing at the collegiate level, so the expectation is that they go out and wrestler for a full seven minutes and show what they can do. If we go out and wrestle for a full seven minutes, we can show just how dominant we can be."
The Match-up
Sunday will mark the first time in team history that the team will compete at the Pembroke Classic. It is a new start for a program that is looking to rebuild the rich tradition that the Wheeling Wrestling program has been known for. It will be the first official tournament that the team has competed in since the 2021 MEC Championships and the first non-championship tournament the team has competed at since the Baldwin Wallace John Summa Invite on February 18th, 2019.
Wheeling had seven first-place finishers in that tournament, but none of the current Wheeling Wrestlers were a part of that team. This team looks to start its own winning tradition as they get back to where Wheeling once was as a top wrestling program in the country.
The Details
The Pembroke classic will be an all-day event hosted by UNC Pembroke in Pembroke, North Carolina. You can follow along with live match results throughout the day by clicking HERE.
"first" - Google News
November 07, 2021 at 07:51AM
https://ift.tt/3mTi9S0
Wrestling Kicks off First Full Season Since 2018-2019 at Pembroke Classic - Wheeling University Athletics
"first" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2QqCv4E
https://ift.tt/3bWWEYd
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Wrestling Kicks off First Full Season Since 2018-2019 at Pembroke Classic - Wheeling University Athletics"
Post a Comment