NC State wrestling opens home slate Friday night against App State

After back-to-back weekends on the road, the NC State wrestling team will make its home debut Friday night. The Wolfpack (1-0) will host App State at 7 p.m. inside Reynolds Coliseum.

“This is a great opportunity for us, and obviously being at home in Reynolds, it is a great venue to wrestle in,” head coach Pat Popolizio said. “We’ve sold a lot of tickets, and we expect a good crowd. We also expect our guys to show up and put a show on.”

The two squads will be facing off for the 12th straight year. The Pack has won each of the previous 11 meetings dating back to 2014, including 40-3 last year in Boone.

“You have an in-state school that has done a phenomenal job,” said Popolizio. “They coach their guys up, and they are always ready to compete against us. Whether it is home or away, its always a war with them.

“We have got to show up, and we have got to be ready to compete because they want to come in and knock our guys off. That makes us wrestle better and elevates our competitiveness.”

Top Bouts vs. App State

141: #7 Kai Orine vs. Sean Carter
Both have moved up from 133 pounds for 141 this season. They met in the dual in Reynolds two years ago, and Carter scored the lone takedown in OT for the win. Carter finished second weight class at last weekend’s Mountaineer Invite, defeating #16 Sam Latona of Virginia Tech in OT 8-5 in the semifinals. It was his first action in an App State singlet since suffering a knee injury in January of 2023.

“Both guys have a lot of college experience and are very familiar with each other,” Popolizio said. “Where Kai started and to where he is now, he has continued to improve. This will be a highly contested match, and we have to be ready.”

165: #20 Derek Fields vs. #8 Will Miller
The two did not match up in last’s year dual, as A.J. Kovacs scored a 5-4 win over Miller last year. Last weekend Miller also won his weight class in the Mountaineer Invite, gaining a 4-3 win over #11 Andrew Sparks of Minnesota in the final. Miller won a SoCon championships last year and is a two-time NCAA qualifier.

“I think Derek has improved a lot with the work he put in over the summer,” Popolizio said. “It helps a ton to get in the lineup and make the national tournament and you get that growth and experience. This is a really good opportunity for him to go out and prove himself at home against a really competitive top-10 guy.”

Battle at 125 pounds?

NC State might be facing a bit of an unexpected dilemma at 125 pounds.

Jakob Camacho, a three-time ACC champion, returned for his sixth and final season. After he scored a ranked win in the dual against Campbell, he dropped all three of his matches the next day at the Journeymen Collegiate Classic.

R-Fr. Vince Robinson was the talk of the event winning the 125A pool. He scored three ranked wins, two over NCAA qualifiers in defeating #13 Diego Sotelo of Harvard (15-9), #16 Max Gallagher of Penn (17-5 major dec.), and #19 Sheldon Seymour of Lehigh (10-4).

“There is a lot of action to come, and there are a lot of options,” Popolizio said. “We always aim to leave those kinds of decisions in athletes’ hands. We want to keep seeing development and improvement. I would imagine we would see both of those guys in our lineup during the year. I’ll let these guys figure it out. We will probably see somebody move up at some point, but we are going to put the best lineup we can second semester.”

More Duals on Sunday

After App State Friday night, NC State will make the trip up to New Jersey to face Princeton and Rutgers in duals on Sunday. Princeton will be a 2 p.m. start and Rutgers to follow at 4 p.m.

“We were looking for that when we were building our schedule, we want to go into a hostile environment,” Popolizio said. “We learned a lot from this past weekend, and I’m excited to see the adjustments our guys have made to compete against some really good teams this weekend.” 

Both the Princeton and Rutgers dual will be streamed on UFC Fight Pass.