NC State wrestling: Regular-season awards

NC State wrestling, fresh off a dominant ACC dual championship and 13-1 regular season, will be in action Sunday, kicking off its postseason. The Wolfpacker will be on hand in Charlottesville as the Pack goes for its fourth straight ACC title. The conference tournament is also where automatic bids to the NCAA Championships, held March 17-19 in Detroit, are earned.

First, a look back at the regular season:

Most Outstanding Wrestler — 184-pounder Trent Hidlay

This one came down to NC State’s two undefeated wrestlers — sixth-year senior Tariq Wilson and redshirt sophomore Trent Hidlay, who are both ranked third nationally at their weight by the coaches, tied for the team lead.

Both have had impressive seasons. Wilson is 13-0 overall, 5-0 against ranked foes (three top-20 wins) and has three bonus point victories (one pin, one tech fall, one major). Head coach Pat Popolizio insisted before the season that the wrestler who made the biggest jump from last year was Wilson, despite the fact that he placed third in dominant fashion at last year’s NCAA Championships. Looks like the coach nailed it.

• How Pat Popolizio built NC State into a powerhouse, Part I l Part II

Meanwhile, Hidlay is 15-0 on the season, 7-0 against ranked competition and has posted 13 victories by bonus points (four falls, three tech falls and six majors). With one more match, he would’ve been in the running for the NCAA’s most dominant wrestler standings.

With the way the rankings are made, they average the number of team points scored per match if every match occurred during a dual. In that breakdown, Hidlay averaged 4.6 team points per match, which would be between a major decision (four) and tech fall (five). That figure would’ve ranked fourth nationally, had Hidlay had enough matches.

Best Win — Hayden Hidlay prevails in OT vs. former NCAA champ Mekhi Lewis

This was not only NC State’s highest-ranked win of the year — Mekhi Lewis, the 2019 NCAA champion at 165 pounds, was ranked third nationally at the time — but the drama that went down two days before Hayden Hidlay’s win made the triumph even sweeter.

Hidlay was surprisingly pinned by a top-10 opponent from North Carolina on Feb. 18 for the first-ever bonus-point loss of his extensive college career, and also his first defeat at the hands of an ACC foe. In addition, he later estimated it was his first time being pinned since fifth grade.

However, Hidlay bounced back to upset Lewis in dramatic fashion, prevailing in overtime. The former NCAA finalist did it with an arm spin — something he has been able to hit on the best of the best. He secured the winning takedown against Lewis with it, a handful of months after scoring a takedown on six-time Olympic and world gold medalist Jordan Burroughs.

Unfortunately, due to the seedings, the rematch between Hidlay and Lewis at Sunday’s ACC Championships will go down in the semifinals, and not the finals, since Hidlay was awarded the No. 2 seed and Lewis the No. 3 (UNC’s Clay Lautt is No. 1 after pinning Hidlay).

Because it matches up the top two teams, and limits the losing squad to third-place points from one of their top grapplers, that semi may be one of the most important matches of tomorrow’s tournament.

Best Team Win — 22-10 over Virginia Tech

A competitive dual was expected to decide the ACC dual championship once again. However, the Hokies forfeited the match and NC State technically secured the title with its 25-12 win over North Carolina Feb. 18.

However, they waited to bring the trophy out and celebrate until a thorough dismantling of their ACC rivals.

The Hokies had not scored so few points in a dual since reaching the same number in a 2019-20 dual against North Carolina. Virginia Tech just does not lose matches like that, but the Wolfpack wanted to leave no doubt about the result following the controversy earlier in the season.  

Best Dual Performance — 19-15 loss to Iowa

NC State gave then-No. 1 Iowa all they could handle in a 19-15 defeat. In some estimations, they won the match if not for two controversial refereeing calls.  

First was 141-pound freshman Ryan Jack nearly doing the unthinkable and posting a defensive pin in the closing seconds against former NCAA finalist Jaydin Eierman. Jack jumped out to a 5-2 lead, impressed with his scrambling ability in that one, proving he can hang with the country’s best of the best when he’s on — but, right or wrong, a lot of refs are not making that call, with that much time left against that team.

Make no mistake it does not take a biased point of view to think the pin should’ve been called (one Twitter poll had 650 voters, and 79 percent said Eierman was pinned), but in fact the even bigger refereeing gaffe was when they inexplicably stopped heavyweight Tyrie Houghton’s power-half after jumping out to a 2-0 lead and putting opponent Tony Cassioppi in danger.

Houghton was an unknown nationally at the time, and thought to be third on the NCSU depth chart, but surprised in an eventual 6-2 loss and then went on to start the next five matches.

Though NC State started Owen Trephan at the biggest weight in the final two duals of the season, they went back to Houghton for the postseason, and he earned the No. 2 seed for ACCs.

Biggest Upset — Ed Scott over No. 8 Kaleb Young (Iowa)

Part of the reason NC State had a chance to upset the Hawkeyes was the shocking 70-second pin Ed Scott recorded against No. 8 Kaleb Young. It was part of three straight wins by Scott over top-15 foes, but by far the most notable.

Young has wrestled as high up as 174 pounds in his college career, and is a three-time All-American who has earned a pair of top-10 seeds to the NCAA Championships in his career. In six years of college wrestling, Young is 93-33 in his career heading into the postseason.

Scott has proven with his wrestling throughout the season the win was no fluke, with impressive performances and tons of bonus points. He finished the regular season with a team-high five pins, tied for second nationally with seven tech falls and finished 10th in the aforementioned NCAA.com “most dominant wrestler” standings.

Top Redshirt Season — 184-pound freshman Joey Milano

The Wolfpacker has reported rave reviews on Joey Milano, the native of Schwenksville, Penn., since practice started. And Milano backed up the hype during the season.

He officially went 23-6, and was named the nation’s top redshirt at 184 pounds by FloWrestling, who noted in its breakdown “no one on this list wrestled more than” Milano.

He won three of the seven open tournaments he entered, placed top five in all of them except the Southern Scuffle (which has many teams’ starters) and his six losses were to five NCAA starters, plus UVA redshirt Hadyn Danals, who Milano beat by 15-0 tech fall in January to avenge his loss.

Two losses were by one point, another was in OT — to No. 17 Caleb Hopkins of Campbell — and two additional defeats came against top-21 foes.

Bold Prediction — NC State brings home a team trophy from NCAAs

Yes, it’s been done before, but there probably aren’t many from the outside who still think it’s likely for the Wolfpack to finish among the top four at NCAAs. The biggest media outlets in the sport plug their individual national rankings into scoring rubrics and currently have NC State finishing sixth (InterMat, but only 0.5 points behind fifth-place Ohio State) and eighth (FloWrestling, though only three points out of a tie for sixth).

However, in addition to a dominant regular season, outside factors have boosted NC State’s chances. Iowa, expected to be in contention for first or second, lost their best wrestler, Spencer Lee, the defending 125-pound champion. Oklahoma State, another trophy contender, is down its best wrestler as well, AJ Ferrari, the defending champ at 197.

Between the Hidlay brothers and Wilson, the Wolfpack has three legitimate NCAA title contenders. Given their regular-season performances, 157-pounder Ed Scott and 197-pounder Isaac Trumble are true All-America threats — Scott is tracking like a top-10 NCAA seed, and Trumble should join that company with an ACC championship (he is way underranked for his résumé currently).

It’s going to take a true team effort, but in addition to everybody mentioned above 125-pounder Jakob Camacho is a podium threat, as is 165-pound super senior Thomas Bullard.

NC State was the only school to earn NCAA allocations at all 10 weights. If all 10 can punch their NCAA tickets at tomorrow’s ACC Championships, the Pack will have plenty of ammo — perhaps more than any other team in the country — to claim a trophy.