At 22-0, NC State redshirt freshman 157-pound wrestler Hayden Hidlay is the only undefeated rookie entering the NCAA Championships, held March 15-17 in Cleveland.
He is one of just 10 grapplers in the country still with a zero on the right side of his ledger and has even made ACC history by earning the No. 1 seed at nationals, becoming the league’s first of 13 top-seeded entrants to do it as a freshman.
He won a conference crown in overtime March 3, but that isn’t what he dreamed of doing as a kid. Growing up around the sport, he knows all that matters is how he performs at the end-of-the-year tournament. The result from the biggest stage is what will be remembered, and he’s anxious to show he was deserving of that top line on the 33-man bracket.
“It feels pretty good, but I don’t think you can get too high off of things like that,” he said of his NCAA starting point. “It’s just another stepping stone to get to where I obviously want to end up being at the end of the year.
“Being the one seed, I take that as just showing how good of a year I had, how consistent I was — but it obviously doesn’t get you a whole lot. You’re not going to get in the history books for getting the No. 1 seed.”
Many of Hidlay’s triumphs were worthy of being remembered, evidenced by earning the ACC Wrestler of the Week honor a league-best three times, in addition to several national laurels. He beat four returning All-Americans (which requires a top-8 finish at NCAAs) — including one of last year’s NCAA finalists — and outscored them by a combined score of 23-11, a fairly comfortable average margin of victory of 3.0 points per bout for such high-level foes.
In Hidlay’s other 18 matches, he scored bonus points — pinning or beating his opponent by at least eight points — in 13 of them. Overall, he averaged a 7.8-point margin of victory on the year.
Head coach Pat Popolizio noted such dominance, coupled with being the only undefeated contestant at his weight class, proved his star rookie deserves the position he finds himself in entering NCAAs.
“[The No. 1 seed] speaks volumes for the things he did this year,” the coach explained. “A little bit of criteria plays into everything, but at the end of the day you have a committee that ranks off of quality wins, RPI, coaches’ ranking — and he earned that right for the No. 1 seed.”
Not that the prestigious start will impact Hidlay one way or the other. After entering the season left on the outside of every major outlet’s top 20 national rankings, he had a point to make all year and emphatically stated his case over and over again.
He successfully rocketed up the rankings and stayed there — but still has much to prove Thursday when the first round begins. Hidlay received so many Twitter notifications after the brackets came out March 7 — most saying he didn’t deserve the top spot, with last year's undefeated national champion also in the field — he had to turn off the alerts on his phone for a few hours.
“I think a lot of people still think I’m the underdog in the bracket,” he said. “I’ve been wrestling like that all year. People aren’t ready to accept the fact that I’m a title contender other than the people that support me here, and that’s all right.
“I heard plenty of noise on social media … I’m not somebody who gets concerned with things like that, but I definitely saw what people thought about it. It’s not a big deal, you’re going to have to beat everybody regardless [at NCAAs], and I’m ready to do that.”
Popolizio liked the motivational ploy that starting his debut campaign unranked gave Hidlay, although the coach been telling his star pupil dating back to his redshirt year last season that he can win a national title.
The sixth-year head coach would know, mentoring former Pack star Nick Gwiazdowski to a pair of NCAA crowns and a third finals appearance that required overtime and a reigning Olympic gold medalist to snap Gwiazdowski’s 88-match winning streak. Popolizio sees similarities between the two, including in their approaches, but most importantly both can “see things before they happen.”
“That’s what made Nick special and that’s what makes Hayden who he is,” the coach added.
Each found success with targets on their backs that grew larger with every victory — something Hidlay had to adjust to after coming into the season under the radar, despite being a former blue-chip recruit.
“That is pressure, it’s stress, no doubt about it, but that’s what we recruited him for,” Popolizio said. “He’s business-like when it comes to what he does to prepare himself. He’s very focused, very driven and it only fuels him to know that people are game-planning for him.
“I watch this kid train every day, and nobody is going to sneak up on him or steal anything from him. It’s going to be a straight-out war if they’re going to beat this kid.
“He’s not training to be the second-, third- or fourth-best kid in the country. His whole life, he’s lived it like a guy that’s going to go out and win. There’s no better time to go out and do it than now. There are eyes on him at the national level — this is the real deal, it’s big, it should fire him up.”
The 22 wins in the books won’t mean anything after the opening whistle at NCAAs, except that Hidlay is going to get each opponent’s best shot as the top seed. He wouldn’t rather have it any other way; this is the moment he’s been focused on since enrolling at NC State in August of 2016 and going through the challenges of a year of the sidelines while redshirting, watching others get their chance on the big stage.
“Going into the year, I didn’t really have a goal to go undefeated,” he admitted. “The goal going into the year was to win a national championship and whatever happened along the way was just going to be continued improvement.”
It’s impossible to improve on a perfect season, but Hidlay himself admitted the history books won’t remember where a competitor starts the national tournament — it’s all about where he stands on the podium at the end.
The undefeated rookie has prepared the last 19 months — and really his entire life — to make sure that will be the same spot where he opened the three-day event: on top.
“I’m mentally prepared to win this tournament," he said. "Most people don't think I'm able to right now, but I'm definitely prepared to win this tournament — and if I do, I won't be surprised."
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