It was another banner regular season for the No. 10 NC State Wolfpack wrestling team, which has spent the last 56 weeks in the national top 10 and should stay there after last night’s 17-16 win at No. 14 Virginia Tech. The Pack claimed its second straight ACC dual championship and its first win on the Hokies’ home floor since 2006.
The postseason begins March 9, when the Wolfpack returns to Blacksburg for the ACC Championships. Bids for the NCAA Championships, held March 21-23 in Pittsburgh, are earned at the conference tournament, and The Wolfpacker will be there every step of the way.
Some notes and nuggets upon the completion of the regular season:
• NC State technically shared the ACC dual championship with North Carolina, thanks to both having 4-1 records in league action, but the Wolfpack beat the Tar Heels in their head-to-head matchup, 20-14, on Feb. 15 in Chapel Hill (and it wasn't that close as they wrestled two backups after clinching the team score).
It marks the Pack’s first back-to-back ACC dual titles since 2001-02.
• It was a 47-day layoff for 133-pound redshirt sophomore All-American Tariq Wilson since he last competed prior to last night. The third-place finisher at last year’s NCAA Championships was hurt Jan. 6 during the match against Ohio State, and had not wrestled since.
All he did in his return was control No. 14 Korbin Myers the entire match and win, 6-1. Wilson was ranked No. 11 nationally in the latest coaches’ panel rankings, behind an ACC foe in No. 4 Micky Phillippi of Pittsburgh, who Myers beat earlier this year.
• Since stepping into the lineup for twin brother Jamal in mid-January, 141-pound fifth-year senior Jamel Morris — who had never been a full-time starter before — has gone 7-0 with four bonus-point wins, including a first-period pin of the nation’s No. 30 wrestler. Morris has not been taken down in any of those bouts while outscoring foes 63-5.
Morris went undefeated in four ACC duals and will earn the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament at a weight class that is wide open and will provide huge points for the team race. 141 is one of just two weight classes in the league (184 is the other) that had all six competitors ranked in the latest coaches panel rankings of the top 33 grapplers in the country at each weight class. The 141-pounders ranged from No. 19 nationally (UNC’s A.C. Headlee, the one foe that Morris did not face in a dual — although Morris did beat him 10-6 at the Hokie Open in November) to No. 29 (Morris checked in at No. 23).
Morris enters the postseason with a team-high 20 wins and 20-3 overall mark.
• Fifth-year senior 125-pounder Sean Fausz has been similarly dominant all year en route to a 10-1 mark. He did lose a match back in December by pin, but in the other bouts he has outscored foes 83-21 in eight matches at 125 and 23-2 in two matches at 133.
His wins this year include an 8-2 victory over former NCAA finalist Zeke Moisey and a 6-0 decision over Virginia's Louie Hayes, who beat him at the NCAA Championships last year to reach the quarterfinals.
• 157-pound redshirt sophomore and 2018 NCAA finalist Hayden Hidlay enters his second postseason with a career mark of 44-3. He is a perfect 10-0 in ACC duals at NCSU, and since suffering his second loss of the season Dec. 16 — both to top-10 opponents — he is 13-0 with nine bonus-point wins, outscoring foes 158-49 in the 12 matches he didn't end by pin.
• During seventh-year head coach Pat Popolizio’s tenure in Raleigh, the team has gone 102-27 overall, a winning percentage of .791, and 22-14 in conference action (.611).
It took NC State the previous 12 years before Popolizio's arrival to eclipse 100 wins, going 109-108-3 overall (.502) and 31-27-1 in the ACC (.534).
Take Popolizio’s first year out (5-6 overall, 0-5 ACC) and his winning percentages rise to .822 overall and .710 in league action. Since placing 63rd in the coach's debut campaign, the team has finished among the top 20 at each of the previous five NCAA Championships, headlined by last year's fourth-place team trophy.
If the team posts another top-20 finish at Nationals this season, it will be the first time the program has ever done so in six straight seasons.
• In the last four seasons, the Pack has gone 67-8 overall (.893) and 17-3 in the ACC (.850). No team in the country has more wins during that time period, in which NCSU is 21-8 against top-25 foes. That overall win percentage ranks fifth nationally, trailing only Penn State, Oklahoma State, Iowa and Missouri.
That span marks the first time since ACC wrestling began in 1954 that the Pack has suffered one or less conference defeats in four straight years. It had streaks of three from 1981-83 and 2000-02 under legendary coach Bob Guzzo.
• The team’s worst winning percentage during the last four campaigns was this season’s .842 mark. But to put in perspective how far above the norm even that is, prior to the start of that streak the Pack has had a winning percentage above .840 just three times in its history, which dates back to 1925 (and one of those seasons was in 1938, when the Pack went 6-1).
Current National Rankings Breakdown
Here are the latest coaches’ panel national ratings (updated Feb. 14), and where each NCSU starter stood in them, along with others from the ACC ranked in the nation's top 33:
125 R-Sr. Sean Fausz — No. 11, second in the ACC behind No. 5 Jack Mueller, UVA (2 total from the ACC ranked)
133 R-So. Tariq Wilson — No. 11, second in the ACC behind No. 4 Micky Phillippi, Pitt (5 total)
141 R-Sr. Jamel Morris — No. 23, third in the ACC behind No. 19 Austin Headlee, UNC, and No. 22 Sam Krivus (6 total)
149 R-Sr. Justin Oliver — No. 7, third in the ACC behind No. 5 Austin O’Connor, UNC, and No. 6 Mitch Finesilver, Duke (4 total)
157 R-So. Hayden Hidlay — No. 4, first in the ACC (5 total)
165 R-So. Thomas Bullard — No. 17, second in the ACC behind No. 8 Mekhi Lewis, VT (4 total)
174 R-So. Daniel Bullard — No. 23, third in the ACC behind No. 7 David McFadden, VT, and No. 14 Matt Finesilver, Duke (5 total)
184 R-So. Nick Reenan — No. 4, second in the ACC behind No. 2 Zach Zavatsky, VT (6 total)
197 R-Sr. Malik McDonald — No. 21, fourth in the ACC behind No. 7 Jay Aiello, UVA, No. 8 Tom Sleigh, VT, and No. 20 Kellan Stout, Pitt (4 total)
HWT Fr. Colin Lawler/Fr. Deonte Wilson — Not ranked (3 total)
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