Wrestling | 3/11/2021 12:43:00 PM

BLOOMSBURG, Pa. - The NCAA has released the seeding and the full brackets for the upcoming 2021 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. Redshirt freshman Cole Rhone (Benton, Pa./Benton Area), the lone Bloomsburg representative at this year's national tournament, is seeded 32nd at 133 pounds.

Rhone's fourth-place finish at the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Championships ensured himself an automatic berth into this year's national championships and marked the highest finish by a Bloomsburg wrestler in two seasons competing at the MAC Championships. It also gave the Huskies' wrestling program three straight seasons with at least one NCAA qualifier after going four years without a wrestler competing in the national tournament.

The redshirt freshman, who sports a 5-2 record in his first season with the Huskies, will wrestle a pigtail match against Bryce West of Northern Illinois, who is seeded 33rd in the tournament. West finished fifth at the MAC Championships last month and brings a 10-5 record with him to this year's national championships. The winner of the Rhone-West match on Thursday morning will advance to square off against top-seeded Daton Fix from Oklahoma State. Fix, the top seed a 133 pounds for the second time in his career, is 9-0 on the year with eight bonus-point wins and four falls. Fix won the Big 12 individual title this past weekend.

At the MAC Championships two weekends ago, Rhone, unseeded at 133 pounds, advanced to the semifinal round of the tournament with a pair of victories against pre-seeded opponents. The Benton, Pennsylvania, native opened with a 4-3 victory over seventh-seeded Justin Patrick of Cleveland State in his first-round match and then upset second-seeded Brendon Fenton of Kent State, 9-6, in the quarterfinals. However, after jumping out to an early 2-0 lead against Rider's Richie Koehler in the semifinal bout, Koehler bounced back to take a 4-2 lead midway through the third. Koehler eventually converted his tie-breaking takedown into a pin with 55 seconds left to knock Rhone to the consolation side of the bracket.

Rhone had the virtue of watching a consolation quarterfinal match between Central Michigan's Andrew Marten and Southern Illinois Edwardsville's (SIUE) Aaron Schulist on Saturday morning before taking the mat against the winner. Schulist ended up defeating Marten to set up a match for the ages against Rhone in the consolation semifinals.

Rhone jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first period with a takedown and a two-point nearfall before Schulist scored a reversal to cut the lead in half. Rhone escaped before the period ended to take a 5-2 lead after the opening three minutes. In a wild second period that saw both wrestlers nearly pinned on multiple occasions, Schulist scored a reversal midway through the second and then converted four back points to take an 8-5 lead. Rhone, however, countered with a reversal and then finished the period on top to trim the deficit to 8-7. Rhone chose bottom to start the third and picked up two points on another reversal to take a 9-8 advantage. The Huskies' grappler then rode out Schulist over the final 1:34 to add a bonus point for riding time for the 10-8 victory and to clinch a spot in the national championships.

The redshirt freshman then wrestled for third place in the bracket but was pinned late in the first period by Ohio's Mario Guillen to earn him a fourth-place finish.

In his only other two matches of the year, Rhone wrestled twice against grapplers from the University at Buffalo on February 11 and earned a 2-1 win over Caleb Svingala followed by a fall over Tommy Maddox.

Rhone and West have not competed against each other in their history.

The NCAA Division I National Championships will be held at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri, from Thursday, March 18, through Saturday, March 20.