Home NCAA Tournament East Regional Preview

East Regional Preview

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East Region Championship | Event Website
Gettysburg College
Saturday, March 2nd, 9:00 AM

17 Teams – Full List

d3wrestle.com Rankings | NWCA Team Rankings

Ranked Teams: #6 Centenary, #7 Wilkes, #8 Delaware Valley, #16 TCNJ, #17 NYU, #23 Ursinus

d3wrestle.com Top Ten Individuals (Returning AA in Bold)
125 – #2 Bewak (JHU), #4 Frankel (Del Val), #5 Rice (Hunter), #7 Donaldson (Ursinus)
133 – #6 Mendoza (Wilkes), #8 O’Boyle (McDaniel)
141 – #9 Marcello (JHU)
149 – #2 Hartenstine (Wilkes), #3 Ajagbe (Del Val)
157 – #2 Burdge (Centenary), #3 Krawchuk (Wilkes), #9 Jasinski (Ursinus)
165 – #3 Favia (Stevens), #4 Darling (TCNJ), #9 Rice (NYU), #10 Vernon (Centenary)
174 – #3 Dufresne (Centenary)
184 – #5 Broderick (TCNJ)
197 – #3 Karns (Del Val)
285 – #2 Zitone (Centenary)

Seventeen teams descend on Gettysburg this weekend for the first year of the new regional format. Gettysburg hosted the Centennial Conference tournament last season, but this is a step up with almost twice as many teams. With three top ten teams and three more in the top 25, the team race should be tight. Centenary is in the midst of perhaps their best season ever, finishing 3rd in the National Duals and featuring four wrestlers in the d3wrestle.com top ten. Wilkes is right on their heels and is in the midst of a program-record 19 match winning streak. Delaware Valley is the third top ten team with three ranked wrestlers of their own. TCNJ, NYU, and Ursinus round out the ranked teams.

The top weights look to be 125 and 165, as each of those has four top ten wrestlers competing for only 3 spots, and each has a pair of returning All-Americans. Paul Bewak and Charlie Frankel lead the way at 125 as the returning 7th and 8th place finishers, respectively. Donaldson of Ursinus has a win over Frankel this year to go along with an earlier loss. Rice of Hunter has just one DIII loss on the year, and it was 6-1 to Frankel. 165 has a pair of All-Americans in Joe Favia and John Darling. Darling is up from 157 where he was 6th while Favia returns to a weight where he was 5th a year ago. Rice’s only DIII loss is up at 174, and Vernon is 18-4 with losses to Favia and Darling.

Other returning All-Americans include Burdge and Zitone of Centenary. Burdge was 5th and is a two time All-American, while Zitone was 7th in La Crosse.

Some unranked wrestlers to watch for include NYU’s Brandon Jones, an Iowa State transfer at 133 who just won by major against O’Boyle in the Centennial final, Polizzi of Stevens at 149, Thomson of Gettysburg at 174, and Camlin of McDaniel at 285.

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33 COMMENTS

  1. This region will make for some very entertaining wrestling even as early as the quarters at some weights. Good luck to all ! P.S. Most of these teams will drive right past E-town and York then continue another hour and a half to get to Gettysburg, I don’t get it.

  4. hellbnt, ur 100% right.. most of us with any intellect at all dont get it either.unfortunately the powers 2 b must not know wat a map looks like

  5. i dont know exactly where nyu & cortland r located geographically, but i do know there both in new york, yet they r not in the same region… yet another brain fart if u ask me on the powers to b part…

  7. Etown, York and Messiah get to travel 8 hours west, almost to the Indiana border, essentially right past Gettysburg. Who called these regions? These are strength pools. It’s obvious. Also, some of the pools are lopsided in the number of teams. This whole ‘region’ thing is a stupid idea. It has decimated the Metro Conference. Nobody in that conference even cared about it this year.

  8. Ken, NYU is in Manhattan about a 4 hour and change bus ride from Cortland/Ithaca/Oneonta/Oswego which are in the Northeast conference, so that is one instance I think the committee got it right. I do agree though it seems to not make sense to not have York and Etown in the regional, although it would only make it that much tougher. I don’t know what the right answer is to make it more fair because I feel like one team is always going to have to go a bit out of their way, just the nature of the beast

  11. 165 is a loaded weight! another reason ncaa should do weight allotments just like D1 There are other regions that have weights without any ranked or contenders who will make it to nationals.

  14. By looking at east and west previews it shows how the some of the best kids will be sitting home and some will go who should be sitting home

  15. Speaking from experience as both an athlete and a coach under the previous NCAA DIII qualifier tournaments, the current format is far and away the fairest format for the student athlete. All the Regionals are now ran under the same qualification rules and numbers. You place in the top 3 you go to nationals period. It takes the politics out of the equation. Previously the number of athletes taken out of a qualifier was based on a formula. The formula factored in the number of qualifiers a region / conference had in the previous year along with how many of those qualifiers received All-American honors. This led to disparate qualifying numbers across different regions\conferences, some getting as little as 10 qualifiers while others getting as many as 33… In other words only the Champions would go to nationals in some qualifiers while the top 3 place winners would go in others. It was also very political because there were no hard and fast rules stating a given place winner had to qualify at a given weight class. Following every qualifying tournament coaches would get in a room. All the wrestlers who placed in the qualifying tournament would be put up on the board as potential qualifiers to nationals. Coaches would go through several rounds of voting to determine who would be taken to nationals. Most of the time this went according to placement in the tournament, but I witnessed instances where a highly ranked wrestler was taken over a lower ranking wrestle despite the higher ranking wrestler losing head to head to the lower ranking wrestler in the qualifying tournament. Coaches would be forced to form alliances to sway voting in-order to get their kids to nationals; especially for teams who are not a perennial power house. Athletes entered the tournament not knowing whether or not they would qualify because it was ultimately based on a vote. This voting also created an imbalance across weight classes at the national tournament. Depending on who got voted in from different qualifiers some weight classes might have 20 wrestlers while others would only have 12… 12 wrestlers for your national tournament???

    “Strength” or “Depth” among regions is always going to rise and fall over time… Yes the Midwest did get an influx of highly ranked teams, but the Iowa Conference and Great Lakes Regional had been experiencing that for years prior… and some of the teams mentioned below have taken a big step up in just the last 2-3 years…

    As an athlete no matter what opponents are in my bracket, no matter what the rankings say on paper… I know if I place in the top three I am going to the NCAA tournament…

    As a sport we got a uniform qualifying system across all teams… we also gained 10 more athletes at the national tournament moving from 170 athletes to 180… see https://www.d3wrestle.com/?p=5102

    I realize some very talented wrestlers will undoubtedly stay at home, but that is less about how the regions are made up and more about getting are total participation numbers up at Nationals…

    so if you really want to help tell all of your friends and family to attend the NCAA Division III National Tournament… prove to them with record breaking attendance numbers that our sport deserves more than 180 athletes at the national tournament!!!

  16. This is ‘more fair’? You have ‘regions’ that have half again the number of teams in them, yet every ‘region’ gets the same number of qualifiers. Do you really think that took the politics out of it by splitting the regions unevenly? It absolutely was a political split, otherwise there would at somewhat even numbers. I’ll be driving 8 hours to a ‘regional’ tournament, passing a school that is an hour away (and further west). So, hopping over schools to create these regions is ‘fair’? Someone please tell me how they plan to award a Metro Conference Championship this year?

  17. Every former conference that was a qualifier is in the same boat. Many of them switch to just a pure team championship with no individual awards… the WIAC and IOWA conference did this. Of course there was politics involved in splitting up the regions its the NCAA. And yes you have teams in certain regions that don’t add up geographically…

    but whether you have 18 teams or 12 teams the rules by which you qualify are the same. place in the top 3 and you go. In that mix of 18 you can have teams who do not fill all of their weight classes… therefore the weight class is smaller that other regions… you can’t base the qualifier count on the number of teams… it needs to be static for all regions… If you look at it individually are you arguing the difference between a pig tail round in a 24 man bracket vs a pig tail round in a 16 man bracket? its not like every weight class in the regions with 18 teams will have 8 guys deep at each weight class that should be going to nationals…

    Our sport got 10 more athletes added overall to the National Tournament and clear criteria for qualifying that is huge!

  19. I agree its nice to have 10 more Wrestlers get to Nationals. Its only upsetting with these regional breakdowns the fact that a region has 8 total ranked Wrestlers while other regions have 20+ ranked Wrestlers. Yes maybe it’s just “the way it happened this year”, but realistically, those numbers are going to be pretty similar every year unless these regions are divided differently.

  20. And since we are venting, how about having nationals a little more centralized, western Ohio or Indiana, then maybe you would see more eastern fans at nationals, I believe Philly had some great attendance DI.

  21. Gettysburg stepped in for Centenarry at last minute to take over this tourney after the putzes in NJ government denied Centennary from holding tournament. Gettysburg is the most western of the 17 members except for perhaps W & L. Yes York and E-Town are close to Gettysburg but maybe this would not even be discussed if tournament was being held in Central NJ as originally planned. A work in process for sure but agreed that the Metro Conference is finding itself here.

  22. Predictions 25 Bewack Rice Donaldson 33 Mendoza jones O’boyle 41 Marcello Vernon Thorsen 49 Hartenstine Polizzi Ajagbe
    57 Burdge Jasinski
    Krawchuk
    65 Favia Darling
    Vernon
    74 Dufresne Thomson Zotollo
    84 Broderick Stark Manganaro
    97 Karns Transue DeReese
    HWT Zitone Camlin Bodden
    1 Centenary
    2 Wilkes
    3 John Hopkins
    4 Del Val
    5 Ursinus

  26. Predictions:
    125- Bewak, Rice, Frankel
    133- Jones, O’Boyle, Mendoza
    141- Marcello, Thorsen, Fava
    149- Hartenstine, Ajagbe, Polizzi
    157- Krawchuk, Burdge, Jasinski
    165- Favia, Rice, Darling
    174- Thompson, Dufresne, Stowe
    184- Broderick, Sheehan, Spangler
    197- Karns, DeReese, Psomas
    285- Zitone, Camlin, Bodden
    Teams:
    1)Wilkes
    2)Centenary
    3)Del Val
    4)NYU
    5)Hopkins

  27. changing predictions
    25-Bewak, Rice, Donaldson
    33-Mendoza, Jones, O’boyle
    41-Marcello,
    Peterson, Thorsen
    49-Hartenstine, Polizzi, Ejagbe
    57-Burdge,
    Jasinski, Krawchuk
    65-Favia,
    Vernon, Darling
    74-Dufresne,
    Zotollo, Thomson
    84-Broderick,
    Stark, Manganaro
    97-Karns,
    Transue, DeReese
    Hwt-Zitone,
    Camlin, Bodden
    Teams
    1-Wilkes
    2-Centenary
    3-Ursinus
    4-Del Val
    5-John Hopkins

  29. 125-Frankel-Bewak-Rea
    133-Mendoza-Herr-Jones
    141-Fava-Thorson-Marcello
    149-Ajagbe-Hartenstine-Mazzocchi
    157-Krawchuk-Burdge-Jasinksi
    165-Darling-Favia-Vernon
    174-Thomson-Dufresne-Winston
    184-Borderick-Sheehan-Stark
    197-Karns-DeReese-Transue
    285-Zitone-Spencer-Camlin

    Wilkes-DVC-Centennary

  30. 125- Frankel, Bewak, Rice
    133 Jones, O’Boyle, Mendoza
    141 Marcello, Thorson, Fava
    149 Hartenstine, Ejagbe, Polizzi
    157 Burdge, Krawchuk, Jasinski
    165 Favia, Rice, Darling
    174 Thompson, Dufresne, Zotollo
    184-Broderick, Sheehan, Stark
    197 Karns, Dereese, Transue
    Hwt Zitone, Camlin, ??????

  31. is there a way to watch this if you cant make it to the actual event itself? will there be a link to the website?

  32. i know there will be live video for the finals, so my question is how about the rest of the tourny? will there be a way to follow it on tracwrestling or not?

  33. really surprised that 2 returning all americans at 125lbs that being bewak & giorgio both lost at there region… 125lbs looks very wide open now after seeing that both of those studs lost, its really anyones to win now.. i thought bewak & giorgio were the clear cut favorites at this weight, but i must say im not quite sure now.. gomez looks amazingly good as does ambrocio & canacho… i would not want to b the opponent in the 1st rd of either bewak or giorgio.. look 4 both of those guys 2 come out & make an early statement in 2 weeks… my 2 darkhorses at this weight are balsiger & donaldson… my list of all americans at this weight in no particular order would be giorgio, bewak, balsiger, camacho,ambrocio,donaldson,preston, fueffinger…

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