West Liberty, W. Va. – After preparing throughout the 2023-2024 season, the Wheeling University Wrestling team headed to West Liberty University for the 2024 Mountain East Conference (MEC) Wrestling Championships. As a team, the Cardinals took seventh in the field, but had three wrestlers place at the event, tied for the most since the revival of the program in 2020-2021.
Jake Powell would take fourth place in the 285-lb weight class while
Caden Canning and
Brian Crevar each took fifth in their respective weight class.
Powell was the Cardinal's leader on the day, finishing 2-2 across his four matches on the afternoon. He began the day as the #4 seed and would wrestle Fairmont State's Ethan Babay in the first round. Powell took the advantage early in round one and was able to secure a 9-3 Decision victory. He then moved on to face the #1 seed Francesco Borsellino from West Liberty and despite a big last second move fell 5-4. He the Moved to the consolation round where he was in a rematch of his first match of the year with Frostburg State's Gavin Bage. This time, the sophomore would come out on top with a 3-2 decision that advanced him to the 3rd place match. There, he would face Glenville State's Gavin Shamblin and battled to overtime, before falling by one point to take fourth.
Caden Canning got the day started with the first match of the day in the 141 lb weight class where he battled Frostburg State's Logan Intieri. He picked up a pinfall victory at the 5:52 mark as he moved to 1-0 on the day. In his second round match, he would drop a 15-0 tech fall as he dropped to the consolation bracket. He then took on Davis & Elkins's Richard Davis for a chance to go to the 3rd place game, and dropped a pinfall at the 5:14 mark. He would then head to the fifth place match, where he faced Intieri in a rematch of his first match. He would pick up another win, this time by tech fall as he took down Intieri 15-0. He ended the day 2-2 overall and placed for the second consecutive conference championship event.
The final placer was freshman
Brian Crevar, who wrestled in his first career MEC Championship event. He began his day against West Liberty's Alec Cook and dropped the match by Tech Fall as he dropped a 17-0 affair. After getting a bye in his first consolation round, he cane back in his first consolation bracket match with a shot at the third place match. He battled Frostburg State's Liam DeBaugh and fell in a 4-0 Decision as he made it to the 5th place match. He then faced Fairmont State's Navid Ighani and pi Jeff up his first career tournament win as he picked up a 14-4 Major Decision to claim 5th place. The other wrestler on the day was
Alex Finsley in the 197 pound weight class. Finsley would end the day 0-2 across the two matches as he rounded out the day.
The Wheeling University Wrestling team returns to action on Saturday, February 3rd, when they head to the John Suma Invitational hosted by Baldwin Wallace.
