INDIANAPOLIS— Before the 2024-25 season is set to begin, the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) released the coaches preseason poll Tuesday afternoon.
The conference will see the return of G-MAC staples: Ashland, Findlay, Kentucky Wesleyan, Lake Erie, and Thomas More, alongside the addition of Davenport, who will compete as an associate member.
Leading the pack in the preseason poll is Ashland University, who received five first-place votes for 42 total points.
The Eagles were marked by graduates Daniel Beemer and Drew Wiechers, and underclassmen Luka Acuna, Sevriano Garza, and Nate Barrett. They all made appearances at the national tournament in their respective weight classes. On the conference end, they entered last season’s G-MAC championship ranked No. 19 in the nation, and put their talent on display, taking home a first-place finish. In total, nine Eagles placed for them en route to the program’s third conference title.
In second, the Tiffin Dragons were lauded with two first-place votes and 37 total points. They finished as the runner-ups in the conference championship, just behind the Eagles. At the national level, Tiffin had four athletes qualify: Zack Donathan, Anthony Anciete, Max Shore, and David Davis. The only one not to return for the 2024-25 stint is Donathan, while Anciete, Shore, and Davis all enter their promising sophomore campaigns.
Ashland and Tiffin were the only two teams to receive votes to finish first in the conference.
Holding the third and fourth-place spots are Findlay and Lake Erie, who sit within just one point of each other. The Oilers take third at 30 points and the Storm take fourth with 29.
For Lake Erie, they will be returning key standouts, seniors Christian Small and Jack Haskin. They were each runner-up in their respective weight classes at the NCAA Regionals last season. In last year's conference championships, Haskin was awarded Wrestler of the Meet honors.
Findlay brings in eight freshmen this season and two graduate student transfers, while also returning key upperclassmen in Graham Shore. Shore went 12-8 last season, and in the year prior, finished third at the Super Region III Regional. Like Haskin, but in 2023, he was named the G-MAC Wrestler of the Meet at the championship.
Both Davenport and Thomas More tied for fifth in the poll as they were given 21 points apiece.
Davenport, who are entering their first season of wrestling within the conference, is coming off a 1-6 record where they found a massive 37-12 victory over Cleary Dual. At the NCAA Super Region III Regional, the team finished eighth. Individually, three athletes qualified for the NCAA Championships.
For the Saints, they went 5-6 overall and placed fifth at the G-MAC championships. They competed in the NCWA GLC Tournament, finishing second before they went on to compete in the NCWA National Championships where they clinched a third-place finish overall as a team.
Rounding out the list was Kentucky Wesleyan with 16 points.
The seven programs will all battle throughout the season in preparation for the G-MAC championship that falls on Saturday, Jan. 25. This year's championship will be held in Findlay, Ohio, on the campus of the University of Findlay. Like previous campaigns, the tournament will be bracket-style, mirroring the super region format in the league’s seventh year of offering the sport.