BOSSIER CITY, La. – Life University took control of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association brackets Thursday, sending 13 of its 19 wrestlers into the quarterfinals of their brackets to assume the first-day lead with 74 team points. Tarleton State, the runner-up team a year ago, sits in second place just behind with 71 points but with half of its team split between the championship (nine) and consolation (eight) brackets. Menlo College sits in third place with 65.5 points.
The top five teams at this point in the tournament are the same top five from the close of last year's championships, but in a different order thus far. Menlo College is the defending Division I champion, and Life is well on its way to defending the Division II title it won last season.
The quarterfinals Friday that start at 9 a.m. at the Brookshire Grocery Arena will help sort the order out, as Menlo is tied with Tarleton with nine of its 10 wrestlers still alive in the championship brackets. Fifth-place Apprentice (seven) and fourth-place Liberty (six) still have plenty of opportunities to shake up the order.
Complete results from the tournament and video coverage can be found at https://go.flo.zone/r0XDZJTi
The top 10 men's team scores following the first day were:
Division I
1. Tarleton State – 71
2. Menlo College– 65.5
3. Liberty – 62
4. Apprentice – 59
5. Jamestown – 49
6. Ferrum - 40.5
7. Central Florida – 45
8t. Utah Tech - 43
8t. Mercyhurst - 43
10. Springfield Tech CC – 31
Division II
1. Life - 74 (overall leader)
2. Iowa State – 43
3. Menlo (NCWA) – 35
Here is a summary of each of the weight classes' happenings:
Men's 125 lbs.
Three returning NCWA All-Americans advanced to the quarterfinals led by two-time All-Americans Juan Cantu (15-1) of Texas A&M and Dominic Ciolli of (4-4) Ohio State. Top-seeded Ezekiel Keel (8-0) of Ferrum College and Tarleton State's Noah Clayton (12-6) have set the tone in the bracket with two pins each thus far, plus a 15-0 tech fall from Keel in the round of 16. Ciolli must contend with fellow returning All-American Lucas VanNostrand (34-6) in the quarterfinals. Cantu's quarterfinal against Life's Kolby Dempsey (11-3) could set the tone for a charge to the title for Life.
Men's 133 lbs.
Life has an advantage here with the top seed in the bracket, Adrian Morales (22-4), in the quarters following two first-period pins and a tech fall. But it's a loaded bracket with five returning All-Americans among the eight contenders, four of whom make up the bottom half of the bracket including second-seed Aidan Medina (13-3) of Tarleton State. Each of the team contenders except Apprentice has a wrestler in the quarterfinals. Kenneth Lambert (11-3) of Clemson will wrestle Jeremiah Steele (14-4) of Menlo in one All-American matchup, with Medina facing Giancarlo Plaza of Menlo College's Division II team in the other. Then there's Gaetano Tedesco (18-2) of Florida A&M still to contend with in the upper bracket starting down an important matchup for Liberty's Brodie Altman (22-3). Eliojah Nose (18-12) of Jamestown is the other quarterfinalist. A presumptive Morales-Medina final could help determine the team title, but none of the quarterfinalists in this wild-card weight class have reached the national title match before.
Men's 141 lbs.
You could argue that the tournament catches its breath here after the contentious first two weights. Only three returning All-Americans still contend for the title here, and two of them have appeared on the raised stage before. Ryan Wilson (17-5) of Washington State is the top seed and is last year's runner-up in this class. Ethan Vugman (19-3) is the second seed at the bottom of the bracket and was the runner-up at 133 pounds in 2024. It's a top heavy remaining bracket, with Wilson and Vugman are the favorites to meet again but Wilson could face Central Florida's returning All-American Kevin Kerns (22-3) in the semifinals late Friday afternoon. Life's Ethan Sellers (8-1) is a favorite to meet Vugman in the other semifinal.
Men's 149 lbs.
Another loaded bracket with plenty on the line as Menlo's Tyger Taam (21-1) and Ferrum's Cameron Curva (24-8) join four returning All-Americans in the quarterfinals. Apprentice needs a win here from David Norris (16-6) to keep pace with the other contenders but he'll have to get it over Iowa State's All-American Thomas Freking (13-2). Camron Crump (20-6) of Life will face Curva in the quarters and Hudson Garcia (12-1) of Washington State faces Taam in another. And then there's sixth-seeded Anthony Dicks (18-7) of Tarleton State also in the quarters looking to win to keep pace with the team contenders.
Men's 157 lbs.
Moving through the brackets, we get our first defending national champion – Matox Allen (28-5) of Liberty – and the tournament's biggest upset thus far. Life did plenty as favorites in the bracket on Thursday, but it played some spoiler roles too. Nathaniel Santos (5-0) of Life, seeded 17th, took down top-seeded Lane Snyder (16-6) of Tarleton State in the round of 16, 8-7. It was closely-contested match that came down to a review in the final 10 seconds in which a takedown was taken away from Snyder, keeping Santos' narrow lead. Snyder placed third in this class last season. His loss shifts the focus to Allen in the bottom half of the bracket and creates a wide-open top half, where Menlo Ezekiel Lara (16-6) could take advantage and score important team points for Menlo. In another quarterfinal, still-undefeated Lincoln Vick (12-0) of Iowa State faces Sam Gallardo (24-3) of UNLV. Both are returning All-Americans, and their winner faces Allen.
Men's 165 lbs.
Five returning All-Americans along with the top seed are still alive here. Four of the All-Americans make up the bottom half of the bracket that includes one of the most intriguing stories of the tournament. Finn Shepard (21-4) of Tarleton State has important matches to win here, perhaps meeting Life's Enrique Santana (8-1) in the semifinals. But he'll first half to get past 10-seeded Calvin Kopstein (11-4) of Virginia Commonwealth. Kopstein is a three-time All-American formerly at James Madison, with his most recent award coming in 2022. He was the 2020 runner-up at 157 and seeks to get to the raised stage again. Santana faces All-American Victor Petkov (20-2) of UConn in another quarterfinal. Liberty's Drake Bowers (16-5) is another All-American and faces a familiar foe in Apprentice's Owen Cherry (26-4) in the quarters. Cherry pinned Bowers in the Mid-Atlantic Conference Championships earlier this month. And to top it off, top-seeded Kanaipono Tapia (36-2) of Menlo College likely awaits the winners who can get through all of that traffic.
Men's 174 lbs.
The largest of all the weight classes with 63 entrants in the 64-man bracket has provided some of the tournament's top drama, but has a defending champion still yet to be knocked off the hill. From the drama side, other Thursday's upsets sent 21st-seeded Zachary Fern (12-3) of Iowa State, 14th-seeded Spencer Kon (10-3) of Tennessee and unseeded Josh Daltro (18-3) of North Florida into the quarterfinals. Daltro won his three matches Thursday by tech fall with a combined scoring margin of 57-10. Kon took out a returning All-American, third-seeded Logan Eastman (19-8) of Apprentice, in the round of 16. Fern is the lowest-seeded wrestler in any of the championship brackets. Beyond them, the top two seeds loom large at opposite ends of the bracket with top-seeded and defending champion Zeke Liescheski (15-3) of Tarleton State still atop the hill. Liescheski had two tech falls (40-6 combined) and a fall to open the tournament. Matthew Riehle (13-5) of Hillsdale College, the second seed and last year's fourth-place finisher here, could make for an entertaining and perhaps high-scoring final. But who can rule out the upstarts in this class now?
Men's 184 lbs.
The seeding largely held in this class except for one spot, and it was a big blemish offered by Edward Davis (21-3) of West Chester, who defeated two-seed Connor Cooper (17-4) of Life in the round of 16. Davis is now in the bottom half of an overall bracket that now has only two returning All-Americans in the quarterfinals, but they loom as large as ever. Top-seeded Nurrideen Ahmad-Statts (25-0) of Williamson College of the Trades has the most wins of any undefeated NCWA wrestler and opened Thursday with two pins and a tech fall. The other is three-seed Ronald Black (20-9) of Liberty, who can now see opportunity to gain important points to keep Liberty in contention.
Men's 197 lbs.
This class was an aberration among the weights with the oddity of only having one returning All-American among its 46-man bracket. Diego Morales (25-4) of Menlo sits in the quarters as the top seed after placing as the national runner-up here a year ago. He's the big favorite here in a bracket that still has three double-digit-seeded wrestlers in the quarters. Michael Kreinbucher (11-2) of Slippery Rock, the 12 seed, faces Owen Zuckerman (11-1) of Tennessee, the 13 seed, in one of the quarters. Third-seeded Payton Brooks (6-1) of Life could wrestle an important match at this stage of the tournament in the semifinals if Tarleton State's two-seed, Colin Vasquez (15-5), can also advance past the 10-seed, Caleb Ridgley (14-3) of Florida Gulf Coast.
Men's 235 lbs.
Here is another loaded bracket that could provide another semifinal between rivals Liberty and Apprentice, as well as a charge from a hometown favorite. David McElravey (11-0) of Apprentice tops off the bracket as the top seed, but he's going to get a tough match in the quarters against Washington State's Keelen Mitcham (10-2), who placed third in this bracket a year ago and was one of the day's most impressive wrestlers with three pins, each of them in the first period. Liberty's Zachary Kaminski (12-6) could be awaiting in the semifinals if he gets by Virginia Tech's Jack Eckerson (10-1). At the bottom is another Apprentice wrestler, Jalen Terry-Winston, as the third seed. The Mid-Atlantic Conference took four of the bracket's top five seeds with McElravey, Kaminski, Terry-Winston and Eckerson. Terry-Winston takes on Life's returning All-American Ryan Krimpelbein (13-2) in the quarters. And then there's the local attraction, LSU's James Baldwin (13-1), who caught attention with a round-of-16 upset over Life's Chipper Creager. Baldwin, who took fourth here last season, could reach the semis if he can top Tarleton State's Isaiah Francis (6-1), the Southwest Conference's third-place finisher who tripped up Utah Tech's 30-match winner and two-seeded Siope Havea (33-9) in the round of 16.
Men's 285 lbs.
Five returning All-Americans are among the quarterfinalists here, led by Micah Vuki (20-3) of Utah Tech at the bottom of the bracket as the two seed. The bottom half of the bracket, actually, is all returning All-Americans that include three-seed Devin Dudley (18-3) of Life facing Paul Ballard (13-4) of Iowa State in one quarter and Apprentice's Dustin Uribes (17-13) facing Vuki in the other. The heavyweights also offer an enticing and potentially important matchup between five-seed Wade Wheeler (16-6) of Liberty and Jackson Phillips (15-6) of Tarleton State. Wheeler is the Mid-Atlantic Conference champion and took sixth in this class last season. It's a busy field that still hasn't mentioned Javier Martinez (13-7) of Menlo as its top seed.
Life has at least one wrestler in the quarterfinals of all 11 brackets. Winning results on Friday morning could go a long way toward pushing them to another title.
