Clum, Henning and Reinke Earn Seeds for NCAA Championships
March 16, 2005 | Wrestling
Wisconsin wrestlers Tom Clum, Craig Henning and Brady Reinke all earned seeds at this weekend's NCAA Championships, March 17-19, held at the Savvis Center in St. Louis. Clum is seeded fifth in the 133-pound bracket, Henning is positioned with the No. 11 seed at 149 pounds and Reinke takes the sixth-seed in the 184 weight class.
'We have two wrestlers seeded in the top eight and we definitely expect to do better than that. We just need to get as many wrestlers on the final stand as we can,' said assistant head coach Bart Chelesvig.
Wisconsin's top-seeded wrestler Tom Clum will begin his tournament wrestling West Virginia's Seth Lisa. On the season, Clum is currently the highest-ranked (Intermat) Badger wrestler at No. 3 in the nation boasting a record of 24-4 and most recently earning a third-place finish at the 2005 Big Ten Championships.
After making it to the championship match two weekends ago at Big Tens, true freshman Craig Henning comes into the NCAA tournament with the 11th seed in the 149-pound bracket. The Chippewa Falls, Wis., native is 22-8 on the year and has never lost a collegiate match other than by a decision loss. In his first match of the day, Henning will be facing Boston Colonial's Rayes Gonzales.
Senior leader Brady Reinke takes the Badger's third seed of the Tournament positioned at the No. 6 spot in the loaded 184-pound weight class. Reinke is 16-1 on the year with his only defeat coming in his opening round match at the Big Ten Tournament against Minnesota's Roger Kish. Reinke will be making his fourth and final NCAA appearance as he will be vying for his first All-American bid. Reinke will go against Ryan Halsey of Cal Poly in his first action of the day.
Wrestling at 125 pounds in his first ever NCAA Championships, redshirt freshman Collin Cudd will be pitted against Drew Forshey of North Carolina. If Cudd can get by his first-round match then he will most likely face No. 3 seed Kyle Ott of Illinois. Also in his first NCAA Championships, sophomore tri-captain Tyler Turner will match up against Pittsburgh's Matt Kocher. At 157 pounds, Turner is likely to face No. 2 seed Ryan Bertin of Michigan, if he can successfully get by his first-round match.
At 165 pounds, redshirt freshman Jake Donar will wrestle Cornell 's Joey Hooker in the first round. Donar is coming off a fourth-place finish at the 2005 Big Ten Championships where he went 2-2 on the weekend. Rounding out the Badger lineup in St. Louis is the identical twin tandem of Kelly and Ryan Flaherty. At 174, Kelly will wrestle Northern Iowa's Eric Hauan. Earlier in the season the two met before as Hauan defeated Flaherty by a 6-2 decision. Wrestling at 197 pounds, Ryan will face the No. 9 seed Marcio Botelho of Fresno State. Ryan will look to continue his pin-streak he started in his last two matches at Big Tens when he pinned Tyrone Byrd of Illinois in 48 seconds and Penn State's Philip Davis in 1:38 to take third-place.
'We're confident and ready to go. This is our time of the year and now we have to prove ourselves,' said Chelesvig.
Badger wrestling fans call follow all of the action at the 2005 NCAA Championships via links at uwbadgers.com to the NCAA web site's updated brackets. Session recaps will be available at uwbadgers.com following each completed session.
