The Binghamton University wrestling team has already made history this season, setting a school record for Division I dual meet wins and winning its first-ever Colonial Athletic Association tournament title. This Thursday at the NCAA tournament in Omaha, Neb., the team will look to put an exclamation point on its already successful season by crowning its first Division I national champion. The Bearcats have their best chance ever at achieving that goal, as they are sending six wrestlers to compete in the tournament.
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Junior Anwar Goeres (141 pounds), redshirt freshman Donnie Vinson (149), sophomore Justin Lister (157), senior Josh Patterson (174) and redshirt freshman Nate Schiedel (184) qualified for the national tournament with their finishes at the CAA tournament. Sophomore Matt Kaylor (165) received an at-large bid into the tournament. Everybody except for Patterson, who is making his fourth appearance, is competing in the NCAA tournament for the first time. The brackets for each weight class have 33 wrestlers, including 12 seeded wrestlers.
Head coach Pat Popolizio is proud of the wrestlers and his coaching staff for what they have done to put themselves in this position.
“It’s been a lot of hard work,” he said. “Having the right kids in the program that have bought into the system we have here … it’s easy to work with them. They want to be great. They motivate me, they motivate the rest of the coaching staff and they are willing to make some changes in whatever it is that we ask, and that’s why they’ve improved. It’s been an unbelievable experience.”
Winning a national title is something each wrestler has been striving toward all year, according to Popolizio.
“The ultimate goal is to win an individual national title,” he said. “Every guy that’s going [to Omaha] to compete has been training for that. It’s been something we’ve been preaching all year. If they fall short, they become an All-American. That’s also a great accomplishment, as well.”
Patterson placed seventh at last year’s NCAA tournament at 184 pounds, earning All-America honors. This year he is competing at the 174-pound weight class.
“I felt a little outsized at 184,” Patterson said. “And now I’m feeling better at 174. I’ve got my weight under control. I’m just ready to have a good tournament.”
Patterson, seeded No. 11 at 174, is pleased with his position in the 33-man field.
“I like where I’m at in the bracket,” he said. “Obviously there are going to be a lot of tough kids at every weight; I know that at 174 there are going to be a lot of tough kids. I’m just going to wrestle my best and hopefully come out where I want to be at the end.”
Goeres, the CAA champion at 141 pounds, will square off against University of Minnesota’s Michael Thorn in the first round. Thorn is the No. 3 seed in the bracket.
“I’m not really looking at the difficulty of the match,” Goeres said. “I’m looking at it like it’s just another step and I’ve got to do it. You’ve got to go after it one match at a time. I can have an easy guy and a hard guy after that, but it’d be nice taking out the hard guy first and have an easier route the rest of the day.”
Lister was not expecting the team to be this successful when he signed here.
“At first, I was like, ‘Yup, this is an average Division I program,’” he said. “But now we’re breaking top-20. We’re showing up in magazines; our name is next to Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan State … it’s almost surreal to be put next to team names that have been around for decades in the sport.”
Popolizio has said that Lister has all the tools to win a national title, but Lister knows he needs to believe in himself for it to happen.
“You can have so many people tell you, ‘You’re a stud, you’re quicker than everybody, you’re faster, stronger,’ you can have people tell you that but it’s whether or not you believe it, and that’s what it comes down to.”
Schiedel is glad to have Patterson along with him at his first NCAA tournament, and is hoping to duplicate Patterson’s success from last season.
“It’s nice to have a man out there that’s been through it and actually place,” Schiedel said. “I’ve looked up to [Patterson] a lot and I hope that I can follow his footsteps and be an All-American.”
Wrestling is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Qwest Center in Omaha. The finals are set for Saturday at 6:30 p.m.