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his overall success. This year Collica will be at his most effective weight of 149 pounds. He owns recent freestyle wins over top contenders Jason Tsirtsis of Northwestern and Brandon Sorensen of Iowa, giving great hope to the Cowboy faithful that Collica is a NCAA title con- tender.
With expectations higher than most entering college, redshirt freshman Marstellar now has the opportunity to live up to the hype of being a four-time, unde- feated Pennsylvania state champion in high school. He is projected to man the 157-pound spot for the Cowboys. Oklahoma State has won 34 national championships as a team, the most of any program in NCAA history.
Nipping on the Cowboys heels will be a well-balanced Penn State squad that returns five All-Americans and boasts several highly-touted freshmen. Jordan Conaway, Jimmy Gulibon and Morgan McIntosh were able to capture All-American honors last year for Penn State while two top contenders for the Nittany Lions were under redshirt. Three-time All-American Nico Megaludis and freshman All-American Zain Retherford elected to redshirt last year to develop as wrestlers and gear up for a Penn State title run in 2016.
Nico Megaludis of Penn State works for a reversal at the 2014 NCAA Championships. Megaludis returns from redshirt, hoping to help lead the Nittany Lions to another NCAA team title. Larry Slater photo.
Retherford is the last man to defeat four-time NCAA champion Logan Stieber in college. He will make the transition up to 149 pounds this season after bulking up during his redshirt year.
“I wanted to be out there wrestling with the guys. It’s like taking an animal that has been in the wild hunting and putting them in a cage for a year. I was eager. Especially watching nationals on TV, that was the hardest part,” said Retherford. Megaludis will return at 125 pounds where he has posted two NCAA runner- up finishes and one third place finish prior to taking a redshirt last year. The return of Megaludis will cause an upward shuffle in the Penn State lineup moving Conaway to 133 pounds and Gulibon to 141 pounds.
Megaludis, Gulibon and Retherford are all ranked No. 2 in their respective weight classes in the Flowrestling preseason rankings. After a phenomenal NCAA tournament,
Nittany Lion senior McIntosh comes into the season as the top-ranked wrestler at 197 pounds, ahead of 2014 NCAA cham- pion J’den Cox of Missouri. The largest question mark for Penn
State’s run at the program’s fifth NCAA title in the last six years will be the per- formance of freshmen Jason Nolf, Bo Nickal and Nick Nevills. If the “Three N’s” can perform up to All-American expecta- tions, it could spell trouble for anyone looking to challenge the Nittany Lion’s this year.
NCAA runner-up Adam Coon leads a talented Michigan team which looks to compete for the national team title in March. John Sachs photo
“I’m back. Nico’s back. We have five returning All-Americans, which is good. We also have some freshman that red- shirted last year that are stepping in the lineup hungry to compete, which is fun
because you’ve got a team that is com- petitive. Everybody just rubs off on each other,” said Retherford.
Preseason No. 3 Michigan returns five All-Americans and 10 NCAA qualifiers from one year ago. The Wolverines are in search of the program’s first NCAA team title.
2015 NCAA finalist Adam Coon returns alongside All-Americans Conor Youtsey, Rossi Bruno, Brian Murphy and Max Huntley to lead quite possibly the best assembled maize and blue squad in his- tory.
“We've got some guys that have been through the grind of the season, under- stand it and are physically able to handle it better now than when they were a little younger. I see a very focused and driven team,” said Michigan Head Coach Joe McFarland. If Big Ten champion Domenic Abounader and standout Alec Pantaleo rise to All-American success the Wolverines will be tough to match come March.
No doubt the hard-nosed Iowa Hawkeyes will be a major factor in the team race discussion with All-Americans Thomas Gilman, Cory Clark, Brandon Sorensen and Nathan Burak returning. The Hawkeyes come in at No. 4 in the preseason poll, but will need to see some young wrestlers emerge in order to com- pete for the top spot on the NCAA podi- um.
Rounding out the top 10 teams in the preseason NWCA Division I Coaches Poll are No. 6 Virginia Tech, No. 7 Lehigh, No. 8 Cornell, No. 9 Missouri and No. 10 Nebraska.
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