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PAINESVILLE, Ohio – The first winter championship of the 2022 calendar year takes place in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference this weekend with the wrestling duals coming to Lake Erie College on Friday and Saturday.
 
The first session on Friday takes place at 5 p.m. ET before another session from day one starts at 7 p.m. ET. Saturday has three different sessions lined up in two-hour increments starting at 10 a.m. ET from the Osborne Center.
 
The awards ceremony will take place in the facility following a brief coaches meeting to determine the all-conference team as 30 total student-athletes are honored, the team champion is recognized, Great Midwest Wrestler of the Meet is announced and Elite 25 Award winner is released.
 
All fans in attendance are being asked to mask in accordance to LEC’s institutional policy for indoor events. Tickets can be purchased online at GreatMidwestSports.com through the Wrestling Championship page or in person at the gate.
 
All dual matches will be streamed live on the Great Midwest Digital Network with separate video feeds on Mat 1 and Mat 2 in relation to the composite schedule.
 
All five Great Midwest teams have been seeded in a vote by the league’s head coaches as the championship format returns to the structure that fans are familiar with from 2019 and 2020. Each team receives one bye and will wrestle all other programs once throughout both days of competition.
 
Both of those championships, at Tiffin and Findlay, respectively, came down to the final dual and the final match at heavyweight, which bodes well for the intrigue building up to Saturday’s last session on the mats. In three years with the conference sponsoring the sport, three different champions have emerged with Lake Erie in 2018-19, Tiffin in 2019-20 and Ashland from 2020-21.
 
Last year’s conference championship format at Kentucky Wesleyan was an individual bracket style tournament with a winner crowned at each weight class. Ashland, then an associate member in the sport before transitioning to a full member in the fall, celebrated the team title and enters the postseason as defending champs.
 
The Eagles are also ranked eighth in the NWCA Coaches Poll, one of three Great Midwest programs embedded in the top 25. Findlay was seeded third for the championship duals while being ranked No. 12 nationally and the host Storm is the second seed while being ranked in a tie for 22nd in Division II. Tiffin will be the No. 4 seed and Kentucky Wesleyan is slotted at the No. 5 seed for this weekend.
 
The Intermat individual rankings have fluctuated this year based on performance in tournaments and duals. A total of 13 grapplers from the conference are nationally ranked going into the weekend including the No. 1 rated James Wimer from Findlay (157) and another No. 1 Daniel Beemer of Ashland (174).
 
Findlay’s Branson Proudlock is currently ranked second at 141 pounds and 2019 national champion Nick Mason from Tiffin is fourth at 197 pounds. The 165 and 197 pound weight classes are loaded with three nationally ranked student-athletes in each including LEC’s James Penfold, Tiffin’s Bryan LaVearn and Ashland’s Drew Wiechers followed by Mason, LEC’s Chris Droege and AU’s Walker Uhl.
 
Last year's conference freshman of the year Corey Gamet of Lake Erie is the lightest wrestler to be nationally ranked at 133 while Ashland’s Luke Wymer and Carson Speelman are among DII’s best at 141 and 149, respectively. The sixth Ashland Eagle ranked this year is All-American Aidan Pasiuk at 184 pounds.