W&J’s Etzel Set To Compete At NCAA Wrestling Championships
WASHINGTON, Pa. -- The NCAA released the brackets for this weekend’s Division III Wrestling Championship Tournament on Monday. The national championship is being hosted by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse at the La Crosse Center on Friday (11:00 am CST) and Saturday (10:00 am CST).
Washington & Jefferson College sophomore Josh Etzel (Elizabeth, Pa./Elizabeth Forward) will be competing in the 141-pound bracket and will take on the No. 2 seed, Kodie Silvestri of Wartburg, in the opening round on Friday. Silvestri, the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion, owns an 18-2 record and enters the tournament on a 13-match win streak.
The winner of the Etzel-Silvestri match meets the winner of the bout between seventh-seeded Josh Malave of Mount Union and unseeded Kyle Windquist of Luther. The top seed at 141 pounds is Bebeto Yewah (28-2) of Wisconsin-Lacrosse.
Etzel is the Presidents’ Athletic Conference and NCAA Midwest Regional champion. He enters the tournament with a 24-3 overall record and has also recorded 13 consecutive wins. Etzel has three falls and four major decisions this winter.
Etzel, who boasts a 31-4 career record, is the first W&J wrestler to earn a spot at the NCAA Division III Tournament since Kevin DeJuliis ’03 and Byron Johnson ’04 both competed in the 2003 national championships.
The only other PAC wrestler competing this weekend in Thiel’s Corey Brown. He is the No. 2 seed in the 133-pound bracket.
The championship finals are slated to begin Saturday at 7:00 pm CST.
