Official Championship Page


INDIANAPOLIS – Six teams competing in the 2020 Great Midwest Athletic Conference Wrestling Championship Duals will gather at Findlay later next week as the schedule for the two-day event was finalized.
 
The coaches determined seeding as each team will face each other once in five different sessions with three mats utilized.
 
Tiffin, also ranked seventh in the NWCA Coaches Poll, is the top seed for this year’s tournament after hosting the inaugural duals in 2019 at the Heminger Center. The Dragons are coming off of an eighth-place finish at the NCWA National Duals in Louisville, Ky., and were last year’s team runner-up at the conference level.
 
Tiffin has also seen its share of athlete of the week award winners throughout 2019-20, most recently 157-pound senior star Trey Grine, who was last year’s Great Midwest Wrestler of the Year.
 
Seeded second is Lake Erie and the Storm recently gave No. 4 ranked Ashland all it could handle earlier this month in a 21-15 final. The No. 3 seed is host Findlay followed by No. 4 Alderson Broaddus, No. 5 Kentucky Wesleyan and No. 6 Ohio Valley.
 
Lake Erie’s lineup is considerably different under head coach Jeff Breese with the graduation of 157-pound All-American Nick Boggs (also the Great Midwest Male Collegiate Achievement Award winner in 2019), the Glogouski brothers (Forrest and Blake) and heavyweight Evan Loughman.
 
Loughman’s pin in the heavyweight matchup was one of the most memorable moments in conference history as it clinched the Storm a championship trophy vs. Tiffin last year.
 
Criteria for the seeding included win/loss performance throughout the season, projected open weight classes and a combination of national/individual rankings by NWCA and InterMat.
 
Lake Erie is the defending champion in the duals format, which will be discontinued following the completion of this year’s tournament. The coaches have indicated a desire to move towards a regular season championship format for the 2020-21 season.
 
The conference duals championship also doesn’t have a direct impact on qualifying for the NCAA Championships that are held this year in Sioux Falls, SD. Individuals qualify for nationals through one of the four NCAA Super Regionals for Great Midwest teams in Indianapolis on Saturday, Feb. 29.
 
Sixteen different grapplers in each weight class will vie for All-American status as one of the top eight finishers in their respective bracket.
 
Several different wrestlers from the conference are represented in the NCAA Division II Wrestling Award standings that will be presented in March. Tiffin’s Hayden Bronne leads all of Division Ii with 11 falls and reigning 197-pound national champion Nick Mason is tied for second with 9.
 
Three wrestlers are tied for second in technical falls, including Alderson Broaddus combo Gino Sita and Curtis Cox. Findlay’s Branson Proudlock is also tied for second in the country with four each.
 
Session 1 on Friday in the Malcolm Athletic Center will begin at 5 p.m. ET. The championship duals will be streamed live on the subscription-based Track Wrestling program for the second straight year.