BOONE, N.C. — The Southern Conference's regular season championship will be at stake in a matchup between teams with unbeaten league records and top-30 national rankings.
App State (8-2, 5-0) hits the road Thursday to face Campbell (8-2, 4-0) at 6 p.m. in historic Carter Gym. The dual can be watched live free of charge on the Campbell Wrestling Facebook page by
clicking HERE, and live results will be available on
TrackWrestling.
The Mountaineers are No. 27 in this week's NWCA Coaches Poll as the second-highest team in the others receiving votes category. Campbell is No. 20 with help from some notable results during an event in the Major League Baseball stadium in Arizona, where the Camels won 22-14 against Iowa State (currently No. 19) and a 21-18 loss to Arizona State (currently No. 5).
App State, Campbell and Chattanooga shared the SoCon regular season title last year, and both unbeaten SoCon co-leaders have wins by similar scores against the Mocs in the last two weeks: App State won 27-12 on Feb. 2 and Campbell won 26-11 in Buies Creek on Feb. 8.
That victory is part of an eight-match winning streak for the Mountaineers, who began the season with competitive showings while losing 19-13 at North Carolina (now ranked No. 8) and 24-12 against NC State (now ranked No. 3).
App State has a trio of wrestlers ranked in the top 25 of their weight classes by FloWrestling, and Campbell has five wrestlers with top-20 rankings from Flo, including three with top-10 listings. On paper, both teams are extremely talented and deep, as seven different members of the Mountaineers' lineup were recognized with top-33 rankings by at least one publication this week and every probable starter from the two teams has at least 15 wins this season.
With that in mind, there could be matchups involving a pair of top-33 wrestlers at 125, 133, 149, 165 and 285 pounds. The 2019-20 wrestling season is presented by Hungry Howies.
Here are Thursday's probable lineups, with rankings from FloWrestling:
#27 App State (8-2, 5-0 SoCon)
125:
Sean Carter (23-13)
133:
Codi Russell (23-8)
141:
Bradley Irwin (19-11)
149: #22
Jonathan Millner (26-4)
157: #20
Matt Zovistoski (24-7)
165:
Will Formato (21-12)
174:
Thomas Flitz (26-10)
184:
Julian Gorring (18-13)
197:
Paul Carson (16-11)
285: #24
Cary Miller (28-4)
#20 Campbell (8-2, 4-0 SoCon)
125: Korbin Meink (17-10)
133: #8 Noah Gonser (25-5)
141: #10 Josh Heil (25-4)
149: Jason Kraisser (19-7)
157: Matthew Dallara (15-9)
165: #18 Quentin Perez (21-6)
174: Austin Kraisser (22-5)
184: #6 Andrew Morgan (24-5)
197: Chris Kober (15-5)
285: #14 Jere Heino (19-4)
