PITTSBURGH (D9Sports) — Four area wrestlers — three District 9 graduates and a Franklin High graduate — will compete close to home when the NCAA Division I wrestling championships take place at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
(Photo of Kane graduate Evan Delong, who is wrestling for Clarion University. Photo courtesy of Clarion University Athletics)
Punxsutawney graduate Kaleb Young is the highest seed earning the 6th seed for the Iowa Hawkeyes. The redshirt freshman is 20-5 on the year and will wrestle Dan Reed of Columbia in the first round Thursday.
DuBois graduate Tom Sleigh is the 10th seed at 197 pounds for Virginia Tech. He transferred to the Hokies after a stellar career at Bucknell that saw him qualify for the NCAA Tournament three times. Sleigh (21-6), who won his 100th match this season, will wrestle Kellan Stout of Pitt Thursday.
Franklin graduate Dakota Geer, wrestling for Oklahoma State, comes into the tournament seeded 26th at 184 pounds. The transfer from Edinboro is making his second trip the nationals and his first with the Cowboys. He is 25-5 on the season and will wrestle Nick Reenan of North Carolina State Thursday.
Kane graduate Evan Delong of Clarion is seeded 31st at 165 pounds. Delong is 16-13 on the year and will have a tough first-round opponent when he squares off with Vincenzo Joseph of Penn State Thursday.
CLARION U.’S BULSAK ALSO HEADED TO NCAA’S
Clarion University’s Greg Bulsak returns to the NCAA Championships as a redshirt sophomore after reaching the 184-pound bracket during his redshirt freshman season in 2017-18. The 2018 EWL Freshman of the Year, Bulsak spent most of the year ranked in the top-16 of the Intermat and FloWrestling polls.
Bulsak holds a 2-3 record against opponents from this year’s 197-pound field, including victories over Rider’s Ethan Laird and Virginia Tech’s Tom Sleigh. The latter came at the Cliff Keen Invitational in December, where Bulsak took sixth place after falling to Eric Schultz (Nebraska) and Nathan Traxler (Stanford).
Last year, Bulsak went 0-2 at the NCAA Championships in a pair of close bouts at 184 pounds. He started with third-seeded Ryan Preisch (Lehigh) and came close to tilting him in the third period, but ultimately fell by a 5-1 decision. In his consolation match, he and Brown’s Christian LaFragola were tied at 6-6 in the third period, but LaFragola escaped with three seconds remaining for the 7-6 decision.
