Mountaineer wrestling traveled to Cleveland to participate in the NCAA wrestling championships. The team sent 3 wrestlers in: No. 33 141-pound redshirt sophomore Aldo Hernandez, No. 21 184-pound redshirt sophomore Tomas Brooker and No. 23 heavyweight sophomore Stephan Monchery.
The NCAA wrestling championships ran from Thursday morning to Saturday night, but App State booked their flight home Friday afternoon as none of the three wrestlers were able to make it past the 2nd consolation round.
With the early exit, the Black and Gold were only able to place 52nd out of 70 teams with just 1.5 team points. To put that into perspective, Pennsylvania State University won its third-straight team title with 177 overall points, which is a NCAA record.
Hernandez kicked off the tournament for the Mountaineers in the pigtail match at 141-pounds against Matthew Martino from Princeton University. Pigtail matches are play-in matches where the No. 32 and 33 seeds face off to see who will face the No. 1 seed.
Hernandez defeated Martino, extending his winning streak to 5-straight since App State faced Gardner Webb University. This win led Hernandez into Ohio State’s Jesse Mendez, the back-to-back champion at 141-pounds.
The match went as expected; Mendez pinned Hernandez in two minutes and 14 seconds. The result sent Hernandez to the consolation bracket to face off against No. 16 Ryan Jack from North Carolina State University. Jack defeated Hernandez earlier in the season when the Wolfpack came to Boone.
Jack got Hernandez on his belly and never let him up the whole match as Hernandez’s fantastic end to the season came to a close with a 14-3 major decision loss. Hernandez finishes with a 20-win season in his second year as the starter at 141-pounds.
Brooker came into Cleveland as the highest-seeded Mountaineer during the season and in the tournament. Brooker would face a familiar foe in a different singlet to open his tournament in Ohio State’s Dylan Fishback. The redshirt sophomore from Harrisburg faced off against Fishback when the latter was at NC State in 2023 and 2024.
Brooker, who dominated the Southern Conference all year with an overall 10-0 record, including tournament play, was unable to get in on a late takedown attempt against Fishback and dropped a close 8-6 decision. This sent Brooker into the consolation bracket, where he faced off against Abraham Wojcikiewicz, the No. 28 seed from Stanford University.
The story of the tournament for all weight classes was upsets, with top-10 wrestlers losing in the first two rounds, and much more so, the bracket was seemingly falling in Brooker’s favor, even with the defeat. But Wojcikiewicz thwarted that without fail. He tech-falled Brooker 17-1 as the Mountaineer gave his worst performance of the season.
As mentioned earlier, Brooker has dominated the SoCon his entire career. He was 13-0 in SoCon play since the 2023-24 conference tournament and 19-2 overall, but this loss moves him to 0-4 in the NCAA championships.
Monchery went the farthest of any Mountaineer in the tournament, finishing in the second consolation round, or top-24. Monchery, who’s picked up the nickname of ‘The Closer’, had the cards stacked against him, facing off against 3 power-conference wrestlers from the Big 12 and Big Ten.
His first match was against David Szuba from Arizona State University, the No. 10 seed in the division. The scoreline read 11-1, but Monchery held his ground for most of the match, showing great improvement from last year’s championship showing.
His lone win in the tournament ended the first day for the entire tournament as he defeated the University of Illinois’ Luke Luffman 4-1. A third-period takedown led Monchery to his first win at the NCAA championships of his career.
He then faced Penn State’s No. 9 Cole Mirasola for a chance to head to the top-16, but Mirasola’s ranking showed as Monchery lost 18-3. The loss ended Monchery’s season.
Monchery finishes the season with a 24-8 record and a second-straight SoCon heavyweight title. His career record moves to 43-19.
App State looks to summer events such as the U20 freestyle nationals and to next season. Freestyle nationals usually take place in early June and App State will send a number of wrestlers under the Boone RTC club.
The team hopes to return every single starter next season as all 10 weights are no older than redshirt juniors.
