INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA released the brackets for the 2019 Division I Wrestling Championships on Wednesday, revealing the first round matchups for the field. The national tournament will kick off on Thursday, March 21 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
(Photo of Clarion’s Evan Delong. Photo courtesy of Clarion University Athletics)
In the 165-pound bracket, Clarion’s Evan Delong will open his first career NCAA Tournament against Penn State’s Vincenzo Joseph. Joseph is seeded second in the field after posting a 23-1 record during the season, with his sole loss coming in the Big Ten championship to Iowa’s Alex Marinelli. Delong earned his spot in the field thanks to a third-place finish at the EWL Championships, defeating George Mason’s Colston DiBlasi in the third-place match to claim an automatic bid.
In the 197-pound bracket, Greg Bulsak enters the field as the 25th seed and will open with a rematch against Stanford’s Nathan Traxler. The two wrestlers met in the consolation semifinals at the Cliff Keen Invitational in December, with Traxler defeating Bulsak 5-1 en route to a fourth-place finish. Bulsak took sixth in the field thanks in part to a win over Virginia Tech’s Tom Sleigh, who comes into the NCAA Tournament field as the tenth seed. The redshirt sophomore was selected to the NCAA field as an at-large pick and spent most of the year ranked in the top-16 at 197 pounds.
The NCAA released its final coaches’ panel and RPI rankings of 2019 on Thursday morning, with Greg Bulsak and Evan Delong making appearances in both rankings.
Bulsak finished the season ranked 22nd in the coaches’ panel ranking, falling from 16th in the March 1 poll. Finishing the season with a 17-6 overall record, he also checked in at 32nd in the final RPI ranking at 197 pounds.
Delong moved up to the 27th in the final RPI ranking of the year, jumping three spots from his 30th spot on March 1. He improved to 16-13 on the year after placing third at the EWL Championships.
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