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GoHeels Exclusive: O’Connor Ready For Spotlight

By Joe Wedra, UNC Athletic Communications
Austin O’Connor can’t avoid the national spotlight, so it’s a good thing that the redshirt freshman isn’t afraid to embrace it fully.
Expected to lead the way for Carolina at 149 pounds this season, O’Connor enters the year with a somewhat unprecedented amount of national attention. The Lockport, Illinois, native hasn’t seen time in a Carolina wrestling regular season dual quite yet, but he’s already had his fair share of success since he’s been with the program.
This year, he not only collected a UWW Junior Freestyle national title at the U.S. Open in April, but he also went to Brazil and brought home gold at the 2018 Junior Pan American Championships at 70 kg.
Needless to say, he’s earned the right to both be an expected leader in the Carolina starting lineup and a candidate to break out on the national scene. There’s a reason a deep run at NCAAs isn’t an unrealistic goal.
“We couldn’t be more excited to see Austin out on the mat,” head coach Coleman Scott said, noting his ability to step in and be a clear difference-maker. “He’s the kind of guy who fans are going to want to root for. We’re all expecting him to come in immediately, add a lot of excitement and perform at an extremely high level.”
For O’Connor, he credits his readiness to someone Tar Heel fans might be familiar with – 2018 All-American and current assistant Troy Heilmann. The two worked together throughout the entirety of last season, and O’Connor actually began the year with a win over Heilmann in the season-opening wrestle offs.  Rest of the story at https://goheels.com/news/2018/10/12/wrestling-goheels-exclusive-o-connor-ready-for-spotlight.aspx?mc_cid=1e42fc3340&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

 

October 14, 2018 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Binghamton Duo paving way for women’s wrestling

Normally, happenings at Presbyterian College in South Carolina and King College in Tennessee wouldn’t warrant attention in these parts.  But as women’s wrestling continues to gain traction at the college level, a duo with local ties enjoys a front-row seat.  Binghamton North graduate Mark Cody took a job in December as Director of Wrestling at Presbyterian College, the lone school in the nation to offer Division I wrestling for women.
Maine-Endwell graduate Cheyenne Sisenstein will wrestle for King College this winter after spending a year at Wyoming Seminary, a prep school in Pennsylvania.  They’re on the ground floor for a sport that has seen eye-opening growth in recent years.
In New York, girls started showing up on high school mats and wrestling boys about two decades back. In those days, it was something of an oddity.
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It’s become much more mainstream.
Cody said 15,000 girls wrestle at the high school and club level in the United States. Twelve states offer girls high school state championships, up six from last year and 50 colleges have women’s wrestling programs.
Chenango Forks coach Rick Gumble said of the 140 wrestlers New York sent to the Marine Corps Cadet and Junior National Championships in Fargo, North Dakota, last month, 40 were girls.  The year before, Sisenstein earned All-America honors at the same tournament.
“Now that women’s wrestling is getting larger, I do believe a greater number of naturally-gifted females will take up opportunities to wrestle,” said Sisenstein, who nearly placed in the Section 4 Division II tournament as a senior in 2017. “I think it took some guinea pigs to get it rolling, but over the years we have had a tremendous amount of great athletes. … It really is a blessing to be able to watch this sport grow first hand.”
Cody, former men’s head coach at Oklahoma and American, said though Presbyterian is the first D-I to offer women’s wrestling, he expects others to follow suit. Oklahoma State and Iowa are among schools considering adding women’s wrestling, he said.
Rest of the story at https://www.pressconnects.com/story/sports/high-school/2018/08/25/womens-wrestling-gaining-traction-u-s/1093886002/?mc_cid=37026a08ed&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

October 14, 2018 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment