Class of 2020: 149 lbs

I love this weight class.  So many interesting personalities & captivating stories.   Lots of guys I'm sad to say goodbye to & hope the best beyond their collegiate wrestling career.

PAT LUGO
IOWA
NCAA: Four Time Qualifer, 16'R12, 17'R12, 19'8th
EWL: 16'3rd, 17'1st
BIG 10: 19'3rd, 20'1st
CKLV: 17'2nd
Southern Scuffle: 17'4th
MIDLANDS: 18'4th, 19'4th, 20'1st 

I don't know how in the Hell the state of Florida can justify not having one of their 13 Division I schools field a wrestling team.  With talent like this coming out of the sunshine state, defining competitive within the top 20? In no time. 

Don't quote me on this but I think Lugo is the only Hawkeye in the entire history of the program to have won both an EWL championship & a BIG 10 championship. 

To see how hungry & determined he was this season was a real treat.  It sorta reminded me of former Hawkeye Wes Hand who made a similar commitment his senior year.  He was good before hand, but just an unstoppable force in his last season.  Lugo was the same way.   

COVID-19 like a thief in the night came through and robbed a lot of wrestlers (as well as others) of a lot of things.  Far from a hand me, perhaps an NCAA title in Lugo's case.

MATT KOLODZIK
PRINCETON
NCAA: 17'7th, 18'3rd, 19'5th
EIWA: 17'1st, 18'1st, 19'3rd, 20'1st
MIDLANDS: 16'5th, 17'2nd, 18'6th, 19'1st 

I sometimes think of Blair Academy as the Skynet Central of collegiate wrestling. A factory that produces wrestlers, the same way Skynet produced terminators.  Matt Kolodzik, a T-1,000 if you will. Talk about a guy with a tremendous amount of skills. He really was like wrestling a machine. 

I was saddened that he didn't wrestle in this years Midlands.  I think five time place-winners while still in college is awesome.  I also would have loved to have seen him potentially go head to head with Lugo.  I hope that in his continuation of wrestling, that he considers wrestling in more Midlands tournaments. 

Princeton is on the rise.  That's a clear as day.  Kolodzik set the precedent & it's a shame that the NCAA's didn't happen this season.  He like Lugo was a contender.

JARED PRINCE
NAVY
NCAA: Four time Qualifier
EIWA: 17'3rd, 18'3rd, 19'2nd, 20'3rd
CKLV: 19'8th
Southern Scuffle: 16'4th, 17'R12, 18'3rd, 19'7th

If you ever grow tired of me preaching of how Florida should have more collegiate opportunities for their high school wrestlers, grab a pillow. It's going to be a long night.  Prince is yet another sunshine state wrestler that proves that our most southeastern state produces the talent to sustain a Division I team (or as far as I'm concerned 13 of them!). 

He missed most of this season due to an academic issue, but came back extremely strong looking like he was ready to go into the NCAA's to take names.   I'll note him as one of the best to never AA. 

His father wrestled at Hampden Sydney, a team we no longer have.

BROCK ZACHERL
CLARION
NCAA: Four Time Qualifier
EWL: 16'1st, 17'2nd, 18'2nd
MAC: 20'2nd
CKLV: 19'4th, 20'7th 

Whenever a team has had a few down seasons & looks to rebuild it restarts somewhere.  It looks for guys to take initiative & be a part of its resurgence. In the case of the Clarion Golden-Eagles, that guy the past five years has been Brock Zacherl.  He really stepped it up & brought attention to Clarion after a few years of the program not being so hot. 114 career wins, four time Qualifier & a four time finalist in tough conference tournaments, I rank him another great to never stand on the NCAA award stand.

MAX THOMSEN
NORTHERN IOWA
NCAA: Four time Qualifier, 17'5th
MAC: 17'2nd
BIG 12: 18'2nd, 19'7th, 20'6th
CKLV: 18'4th, 19'7th, 20'5th
SOUTHERN SCUFFLE: 17'3rd, 18'5th
MIDLANDS: 19'2nd, 20'3rd 

Most of the time I'm pretty content listening to Ohioans & Pennsylvanians preaching to the rest of the world how good their boys are & how much better they are than everyone else.  Yet once in a while I have to admit that this corn fed wrestling fan is pretty happy when a kid born & raised in the Hawkeye state shows the world that Iowa still produces too. 

A four time state champion from Union high school with 210 wins,  had it not been for some nagging injuries & bad luck, I think Thomsen would've been a four time All American.   Schwab wrestled him twice at the Scuffle & twice at Midlands & he came home with medals every time.  

KE-SHAWN HAYES
OHIO STATE
NCAA: Two time Qualifier
BIG 10: 18'3rd, 19'7th
CKLV: 18'3rd, 19'4th 

I really wish that Hayes had another year of eligibility.  Laugh if you want to, but in all seriousness if he was wrestling in the 2020-2021 season, I believe he could be a national champion.  I talk about injuries a lot & how they can severely hamper someone's career.  That's the case here. 

VINCE TURK
IOWA
NCAA: One time Qualifier
BIG 10: 18'5th
MIDLANDS: 19'R12, 20'4th 

The Hawkeyes company man.  He was reliable & always their for the black & gold whenever they needed him.  It was very rewarding seeing him place at this year's Midlands.  As Tom Brands says, "you deserve what you earn" & watching him place 4th in a tough bracket was rewarding.

I'd like to see him continue his career in Greco-Roman.  Iowa has been so heavy on freestyle & it'd be cool to see a G.R. medalist at the PAN-AM's, Worlds or Olympics.  Turk has the ability.  

COLSTON DIBLASI
GEORGE MASON
NCAA: Two time Qualifier
SOUTHERN SCUFLE: 20'3rd 

A fun, unorthodox, wild and crazy competitor, DiBlasi has been one of my favorites the past four years.  When he was at Iowa State & I was working for Takedownwrestle, I covered a lot of the Cyclones duals.  DiBlasi was always a pleasure to interview & to be around.  He was a huge risk taker & I guess to some that concern themselves with plausible consequences that might not have been fun, but to me that was what made him so much fun to watch.  He'd go for big moves.  They didn't always work, but when they did it was spectacular.   The highlight of his career was his performance at the Scuffle. He looked great.  108 career wins. 

Read that he is looking to be a high school wrestling coach & a math teacher.  I have no doubt that both his students and his wrestlers are going to love him. 

COLLIN PURINTON
NEBRASKA
NCAA: One Time Qualfier
BIG 10: 20'3rd 

Sometimes in wrestling, us fans forget that a guy has four to five years to make it happen. We foolishly think & sometimes even try and pass off as fact that if you don't do it by the time you're a junior, you can forget about any success as a senior.  That's why I love guys like Collin Purinton.  Guys who take that silly notion & tell the morons who believe it to fold it five ways & stick it where the sun don't shine. 

A losing record as a freshman, only eight wins as a junior.  No one expected didly from Purinton this season & he comes in to not only knock off Northern Iowa's Max Thomsen but to place eighth at the Midlands and finish an extremely impressive third at the BIG 10's.  Proof that it ain't over till it's over.

JEREN GLOSSER
IOWA
MIDLANDS: 18'R12, 19'4th, 20'6th 

I've written about Glosser a lot in the past.  I don't know how anyone, even people who outright hate the Hawkeyes, couldn't be a fan of this guy once they got to know him.  I first started paying attention to him because I grew up with his coach Brett Little.  Little wrestled for Tri-County a school about 10 miles from the house I grew up in.  I always watched him as a wrestler & have had nothing but the utmost respect for him as a coach.

As to Glosser, what a Renaissance man.  Speech, Academic bowl, Physics Olympics, national honor society...he got it done on in the classroom as much as he did on the mat. 

I'm sure that over the history of collegiate wrestling there have been a grand number of wrestlers who never cracked the varsity line-up.  I don't doubt that at all, but in modern times, as far as I'm concerned the best was Jeren Glosser.

HENRY POHLMEYER
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE
NCAA: Three time Qualifier
BIG 12: 18'4th, 19'5th, 20'2nd
MIDLANDS: 19'8th 

A local from Johnston high school, I always thought that Pohlmeyer carried a bit of a chip on his shoulder after his senior season in high school didn't go as well as it should have.  I was hoping he might win the BIG 12 title this season, but I was happy that he made the finals.  A pinner, he was fun to watch.

RUSSELL ROHLFING
BAKERSFIELD
NCAA: Four time Qualifier
PAC 12: 17'4th, 18'2nd, 19'3rd, 20'1st
CKLV; 17'4th
MIDLANDS: 17'6th
Southern Scuffle: 18'8th, 19'6th, 20'R12

A wrestler who clearly creates the case the California could use more than one class & indisputably could use more collegiate wrestling programs.   I think had Rohlfing been able to stay at 141 lbs that things would have worked out better for him.  I know that this season was rougher for him & I kept on hoping that he'd break out at some point.  He came close to placing at the Scuffle but fell short by one match.

His last opportunity of the season was at the PAC-12 where he finally came through & wrestled the type of tournament I knew he was capable of.  Requir Van De Merwe of Stanford is a really tough kid & what better way to end your season than to defeat him for your first PAC-12 championship?

COLE MARTIN
WISCONSIN
NCAA: Four time Qualifier
BIG 10: 17'7th, 18'9th, 19'4th, 20'8th
CKLV: 17'3rd

I always thought that Martin seemed like he was too nice of a guy to be a wrestler.  That he lacked the "meanness" that you sometimes need to be successful on the mat.  A quiet, polite wrestler that always showed good sportsmanship, he was an easy guy to be a fan of.

I tell you one of the things that made me a fan of Martin was that he brought to attention something that we rarely discuss about what makes wrestling such an important sport & why high schools and colleges need programs.  Brotherhood & commradery.   I think a lot of times when guys look back at their careers, the bus rides & the working side by side with people who want to see you succeed is every bit as memorable as is the matches and the medals.   Martin stated that in an interview & I admire him for reminding the community of that important fact.

JOSH MARUCA
ARIZONA STATE
NCAA: Two time Qualifier
PAC 12: 17'1st, 19'2nd, 20'4th
CKLV: 18'5th 

Senior year unfortunately isn't always the best year & even more unfortunate is how unforgiving we as a wrestling community seem to be of it.  I'm not sure why Maruca's 2019-2020 season didn't go as well as it should have but I do want to point something out about it.  It was his win over Jared Verkleeren that gave Arizona State the dual over Penn State.  He needed to win that match & he did.  As far as I'm concerned that's a highlight worth celebrating.