Wrestling Preview: NW Kansas Tech

WHAT: Iowa State Wrestling vs. Northwest Kansas Technical College

WHERE: Hilton Coliseum

WHEN: Thursday January 6th @ 7 PM

HOW TO WATCH: Big 12 Now on ESPN+

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For the 52nd consecutive year Kansas and K-State have cowardly refused to wrestle Iowa State. Texas Tech has tragically never had wrestling. The Mavericks of Northwest Kansas Technical College will be their proxy on Thursday. That’s right folks this meet is high stakes. Three unofficial Big 12 wins are on the line. This will be the second time in program history Iowa State duals an NJCAA school. Last January they shut out Iowa Central. Iowa State is ranked #13 in the NWCA Coaches Poll and #14 in InterMat’s dual rankings. The Mavericks are ranked #19 in NJCAA.

New Look Lineup

While some parts of the Iowa State lineup have solidified, there’s some new faces in the probables. First and foremost — welcome back Ian Parker! Our long national nightmare of both Parker and Degen vying for 149 appears to be over. It’s unclear where this leaves Ramazan Attasauov and Zach Redding. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Redding drop down to 133 where he qualified for NCAAs last season.

Also of note, Kysen Terukina is listed at 133. Don’t read too much into this. NW KS has only one 125 on their roster, and even he is listed as 125/133. Caleb Fuessley will get his first collegiate dual action in Terukina’s usual spot. Isaac Judge is slated at the revolving door 165 spot. The rest of the lineup is business as usual.

Cyclone Connection

There are Cyclone connections all over the NW KS program. Head coach Chris Guillot wrestled for the legendary Willie Gadson, as did assistant Ramico Blackmon. Their other assistant coach, Lelund Weatherspoon, was wearing an ISU singlet not long ago. He won 2 Big 12 titles for the Cyclones, as well as earning All-American honors. David Carr’s brother Jonathan wrestles for the Mavericks.

Projected Lineup

Individual rankings from FloWrestling.

125: Caleb Fuessley

133: Kysen Terukina (#22 @ 125)

141: Ian Parker

149: Jarrett Degen (#24)

157: David Carr (#1)

165: Isaac Judge

174: Joel Devine (#17)

184: Marcus Coleman (#8)

197: Yonger Bastida (#12)

285: Sam Schuyler (HM)

Key Matchup

The lone ranked wrestler for the Mavericks is #5 Jameel Cole at 174. I would love to see Joel Devine show some offense and put a lot of points on the board here. Right now I think its safe to expect Devine will qualify for NCAAs. He’s shown he can compete with anyone by beating Purdue’s Nijenhuis and wrestling Nebraska’s 2x AA Labriola to a 3-2 match. His defense has been solid. However, Devine has scored 6 or fewer points in all but 1 of his matches. Make no mistake about it, JUCO wrestling has some DUDES, but if he is going to set the tone for an All-American run bonus points would be big here.