North Carolina State University Athletics
Wrestling To Get Early Test At Vegas Invitational
12/3/2009 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
This weekend, the Wolfpack is Las Vegas for the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, the toughest in-season tournament in college wrestling. Wrestling will begin Friday, December 4, at 9 a.m. MST and continue for more than 12 hours. The action will resume on Saturday at 9 a.m., and the championship round will start Saturday afternoon at 3 o’clock.
The Las Vegas Invitational field will include 12 of the teams ranked in the latest InterMat national top 25, and 89 individual wrestlers ranked in the top 20 of their respective weight classifications. The field will include 43 wrestlers ranked in the top 10 of their weight class, 18 in the top 5, and three who currently are ranked No. 1.
“This is a great tournament, and we look forward to it every year,” Wolfpack coach Carter Jordan said. “It’s a great measuring stick for our program. We’ve done pretty well here the last two years. We were 14th two years ago and Darrion [Caldwell] won at 149 the last two years, so we’ve had some success here. Our team is a little different this year, younger but more balanced, so it will be interesting to see how we fare.”
NC State will feature a lineup with five and perhaps six freshmen for the Las Vegas Invitational this year. Taylor Cummings (4-3) at 125 pounds, Darrius Little (7-1) at 133 and Bobby Ward (3-1) at 157 are the lone upperclassmen in the lineup. Cummings is a senior, Little and Ward both juniors. Quinton Godley (4-5) is a sophomore at 174.
The rest of the lineup will be underclassmen, led by 141-pounder Dale Shull (6-2) and heavyweight Eloheim Palma (8-1). Kasey Young (165), Jonathan Becker (184) and Andrew Tumlin (197) all are freshmen who will be in the lineup this weekend. The final spot in the lineup, 149 pounds, will go to either redshirt-sophomore Colton Palmer (1-1) or redshirt-freshman Brett Farina (6-6).
Of the freshmen, Palma, Shull, and Tumlin were high school national champions a year ago, and Shull and Palma in particular have launched their collegiate careers with fast starts.
“We’ve wrestled well so far this year,” Jordan said. “Both of our losses, Utah Valley and Oklahoma, were to tough teams, and we really wrestled well at Oklahoma. We’re young and we still have a lot to learn, but I really like the way this team goes about its business.”
