Falcon Wrestlers head to Regionals Saturday

Mequon

The CUW Wrestling team, coming off a 3rd-place finish in Conference, will travel to the strong NCAA III Great Lakes Wrestling Regional this Saturday at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN. The Great Lakes Regional has 28 qualifying spots to the NCAA III National Championships held March 5-6 in Cedar Rapids, IA. The Falcons will look to qualify wrestlers in back-to-back years, having sent Joe Massman (CUW '09) to the NCAA Nationals last season at 149 lbs.

This year CUW will be led by freshman standout Marcus Lubner, who is coming off a conference championship last weekend at 125 lbs. Lubner will bring a 14-12 record into the Regional.

CUW wrestlers that also should fair well in the Regional include: Josh Nord (16-18 at 174), Aaron Bergen (10-13 at 184), Travis Pagel (10-13 at 285), Kurt Kemnitz (15-19 at 133), David Tuomi (10-16 at 141), and Josh Plate (7-5 at 149).

Nord and Bergen are coming off runner-up finishes at the conference meet. The Falcon wrestlers will be without their leading pinner, freshman Steve Taylor (16-14 at 149), who suffered a season-ending injury last week. Taylor set the CUW season pin mark two weeks ago with 13 on the year.

"We have been competing well lately," commented Head Coach Bret Corner, "but this could be the toughest Regional ever. There are many highly ranked teams and ranked individuals, perhaps the most in one year. The one thing to keep in mind, everyone's record is 0-0 at the Regional. It is a clean slate. We will miss Taylor in the lineup, as he has had a great freshman season. But looking ahead, we want to do our best wrestling at the end of the season, and I believe we have been doing that in February."

The 15-team Regional includes NCAA III #1 ranked Augsburg College, #7 Concordia- Moorhead (MN), #9 St. Johns' (MN), #10 North Central (IL), and #18 Elmhurst College. Wrestling begins Saturday at 9:00am in Augsburg's Si Melby Hall.