The World Team Trials (WTT) for wrestling are in Raleigh, starting Friday. They run all weekend and feature some of the best wrestlers in the country at both the junior and senior age divisions, and the Wolfpack wrestling team will be well represented.

First, about the event:

The WTT used to be where the representatives for the U.S. National Team at the World Championships (or, once every four years, the Olympics) would be determined. The process has been tweaked on the senior level to where the WTT is now a qualifier to get to the final stage of making a national team, called Final X.

In 2019, wrestlers qualify throughout various tournaments during the year for the WTT. The winners of the US Open, held earlier this year, earned byes to the WTT finals. The rest are thrown into a challenge tournament. The winner of the challenge tournament at every weight except 57, 65 and 70 kilograms (no Wolfpack representation in the first two, NCSU All-American Hayden Hidlay is in the latter) faces the wrestler who already earned his spot in the finals in a best-of-three series. In those three weights without someone sitting, the finals of the challenge tournament (wrestled Saturday for everybody else) will become the best-of-three series on Sunday.

The winner of those moves on to Final X, where each weight class has one wrestler waiting on the WTT winner for another best-of-three series. For example, as a reigning medalist at the most recent World Championships, former NC State national champion Nick Gwiazdowski is already in Final X at 125 kilograms and will not be in action at the WTT.

The winner of Final X represents America at the 2019 World Championships, held in Kazakhstan Sept. 14-22.

Although that is how the process works for the senior men’s freestyle division, the winner of the junior freestyle division this weekend will automatically earn the starting spot for their age level’s World Championships, held in Estonia Aug. 12-18.

The Wolfpacker will be live from Reynolds all weekend and providing updates on The Wolves' Den message board.

Here are three things NC State wrestling fans can watch for at the event:

Two NC State freshmen who redshirted this past season will be making their Reynolds Coliseum debut, and they each were excellent on the redshirt circuit: Trent Hidlay and Jarrett Trombley. Both are expected to step into the starting lineup next year.

Trombley, who went 21-6 this season while wrestling unattached, will be in action first, wrestling in the junior freestyle challenge tournament that starts on Friday morning at 61 kilograms. He lost his first match, but has since won two in a row to reach Saturday's third-place match against Jevon Parrish, a true freshman starter at Nebraska this past season who went 20-12.

By way of his win at the U.S. Open, Hidlay is already sitting in the best-of-three finals, where he will face the winner of the challenge tournament, so he will not be in action until Saturday afternoon.

Hidlay was widely recognized as one of the top redshirting wrestlers in the country this past season, when he went 24-2 overall with a win over All-American Brandon Womack of Cornell. His only losses were to two-time All-American Joe Smith of Oklahoma State (by a score of 4-2) and three-time All-American David McFadden of Virginia Tech (3-2 in quadruple overtime).

After beginning last season at 174 pounds, Hidlay finished the redshirt circuit up to 184 — which is where he is expected to start for the squad next season. The success he's had at 86 kilograms this offseason is a great sign for the upcoming campaign, because it's actually a little heavier — at approximately 189.6 pounds — than he'll wrestle at next year.

But they aren't the only future Wolfpack stars in action.

Rising-senior prep commit Ed Scott is in the bracket at 65 kilograms in the junior division, though he was eliminated after an 0-2 start. Still, it should be noted qualifying for the event is an accomplishment for such a young athlete when he could be competing against a 20 year old in the junior division. Scott was an undefeated Pennsylvania state champion — widely recognized as the toughest prep wrestling state in the nation — this past year.

Another one who hasn't enrolled at NC State yet but is in action is senior signee/2019 incoming freshman Owen Trephan, who is competing at 97 kilograms in the junior division. He won the prep national championship at 220 pounds this season and is a product of wrestling powerhouse Blair Academy. The future heavyweight was ranked by FloWrestling as the No. 72 overall recruit in the senior class. Trephan was eliminated after an 0-2 start.

The third current NC State wrestler in action is Hayden Hidlay, who just earned his second All-America honor (which requires a top-eight finish at the NCAA Championships) as a redshirt sophomore. In his debut campaign, Hidlay was the NCAA runner-up who did not taste defeat until the NCAA finals, when he lost to Penn State’s Jason Nolf.

Hidlay ran into Nolf at the NCAA Championships again this year and lost perhaps the most controversial match of the tournament in the semifinals, when a first-period takedown for Hidlay was reversed after review and Hidlay went on to fall 3-2. After the only one-point victory of his entire college career (showing how dominant he was), Nolf went on to win his third straight NCAA title.

The expectation was that Hidlay and Nolf could see each other again in Raleigh for a highly anticipated rematch. However, Nolf recently announced he was moving up to wrestle at 74 kilograms.

Still, Hidlay has a chance to get revenge against a wrestler who beat him in their last match at the NCAA Championships. Former Michigan All-American Alec Pantaleo and Hidlay split their two meetings at NCAAs, but Pantaleo prevailed in the third-place match and is entered at 70 kilograms in Raleigh.

Hidlay also has a chance to make a major statement if he sees James Green in the challenge tournament. The four-time All-American who wrestled at Nebraska is a two-time world medalist, including winning silver at the 2017 edition. Green vs. Hidlay could be one of the best matches in the entire challenge tournament, if it happens.

Waiting in the finals at that weight class for the challenge tournament winner is Northwestern All-American Ryan Deakin, who Hidlay beat last summer in the finals of the U-23 World Team Trials in a thrilling three-match series. Deakin is a former junior world silver medalist in freestyle wrestling.

So while Hidlay won’t have a chance for revenge on Nolf, he’ll still have opportunities to right a loss and make a statement in his bid for a spot at Final X.

Keep in mind this is a weight without a wrestler sitting in the finals, so the challenge tournament will cease after Saturday's semifinals until Sunday, when the finalists will compete in a best-of-three series.

NC State has developed a very healthy Regional Training Center (RTC), called the Wolfpack Wrestling Club. It’s a home for postgraduate wrestlers to continue training and competing in Raleigh, but they also provide mentorship for the current squad, who can train with them in the offseason.

Two of the Pack’s biggest developmental success stories are among the nine RTC athletes in action this weekend.

Both Tommy Gantt and Michael Macchiavello were guys who had .500 records (or worse) for an entire season at one point in their college careers, but developed into All-Americans under head coach Pat Popolizio.

Macchiavello is one of the greatest recent rags-to-riches stories in college wrestling — which he recently detailed on The Wolfpacker Podcast. He went from 19-22 in his first two years, being benched in the latter half of his sophomore campaign, to an improbable national championship as a fifth-year senior.

Both have continued to improve and are now among the best freestyle grapplers in the country for their weight classes. One FloWrestling (the top wrestling media outlet) writer picked both Macchiavello and Gantt to win the challenge tournament, showing just how elite they are.

Below is a full listing of wrestlers with NC State ties in action this weekend (if a class year is listed, it is for the 2018-19 school year), followed by the schedule:

JUNIOR FREESTYLE

61 kg Jarrett Trombley, freshman/RTC member

65 kg Ed Scott, rising-senior high school commit

86 kg Trent Hidlay, freshman/RTC member

97 kg Owen Trephan, incoming freshman next season/signee

SENIOR GRECO-ROMAN

55 kg Joe DeAngelo, NC State graduate/now an assistant coach at Army

SENIOR FREESTYLE

61 kg Sean Fausz, fifth-year senior and recent NC State graduate/RTC member

70 kg Hayden Hidlay, redshirt sophomore/RTC member

74 kg Tommy Gantt, NC State graduate/RTC member

79 kg Lee Davis, NC State graduate/RTC member

92 kg Michael Macchiavello, NC State graduate/RTC member

92 kg Timmy McCall, Wisconsin graduate from Hope Mills, N.C./RTC member

97 kg Michael Boykin, NC State graduate/RTC member

125 kg Mike Kosoy, NC State graduate/now training at Arizona State

Friday May 17

10:00 am – 2:00 pm – UWW Junior Freestyle: 1st Round, Quarterfinals and Consolation Rd. 1-2

10:00 am – 3:00 pm – Senior Greco-Roman: 1st Round, Quarterfinals and Consolation Rd. 1-2

4:00 pm – 8:30 pm - UWW Junior Freestyle: Semifinals, Finals, Consolation Rd. 3-Semis

4:00 pm – 8:30 pm - Senior Greco-Roman: Semifinals, Finals, Consolation Rd. 3-Semis

Saturday May 18

10:00 am – 12:00 pm - Senior Women's Freestyle: 1st Round, Quarterfinals and Consolation Rd. 1

10:00 am – 1:00 pm - Senior Men's Freestyle: 1st Round, Quarterfinals and Consolation Rd. 1-2

1:30 pm – 5:15 pm - UWW Junior Freestyle: Best 2 out of 3 Championship, 3rd Place, True 3rd (If Necessary)

1:30 pm – 5:15 pm - Senior Greco-Roman: Best 2 out of 3 Championship, 3rd Place, True 3rd (If Necessary)

5:30 pm – 9:00 pm - Senior Men's Freestyle: Semifinals, Finals and Consolation Rd. 3, Cons-Semis.

5:30 pm – 9:00 pm - Senior Women's Freestyle: Semifinals, Finals and Consolation Rd. 3, Cons-Semis.

Sunday May 19

12:00 pm – 3:45 pm - Senior Men's Freestyle: Best 2 out of 3 Championship, 3rd Place, True 3rd (If Necessary)

12:00 pm – 3:45 pm - Senior Women's Freestyle: Best 2 out of 3 Championship, 3rd Place, True 3rd (If Necessary)

——

• Talk about it inside The Wolves' Den

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker

• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker

• Like us on Facebook