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NDSU wins 5 Titles in NCC-dominated North Regional; All ten Bison qualify for Nationals
March 1, 2004
ST. CLOUD, MN--There wasn't a North Central Conference wrestling tournament on any of the member schools' schedules this year, so they made one.
Eighteen of the twenty finalists Sunday in the NCAA Division II North Regional at Halenbeck Hall were from North Central Conference schools, and NCC wrestlers took 33 of the tournament's 40 national qualifying spots.
North Dakota State crowned five champions and won the meet with 140 points. Nebraska-Omaha was second with 129 points and Augustana third with 112 1/2. The Mavericks and Vikings each had two winners.
NDSU head coach Bucky Maughan said the addition of four Northern Sun Conference teams and the 10-team regional format didn't hurt his team despite the potential for losing qualifying spots to another league.
"It just made it a bigger tournament and spread it out some," Maughan said. "Omaha had a lot more pins this year than I've ever seen, but they had a lot of Northern Sun people. Normally it's tighter (scoring) than that."
The No. 1 nationally ranked Bison placed no worse than fourth at all 10 spots in the lineup, advancing everybody to the national tournament scheduled for March 12-13 at Minnesota State-Mankato.
NDSU got rolling early in the final round, building off a three-point lead the Bison had over Nebraska-Omaha heading into the title matches.
Nick Magee won NDSU's first title with one move. Trailing 1-0 in the third period, Magee scored a two-point reversal and continued into a three-point near fall to go up 5-1 on Nebraska-Omaha's Mitch Waite. Magee added more than a minute of strong riding time for a 6-1 victory.
"You always want a pin, but it was a pride thing," Magee said. "I had never beaten (Waite) before."
North Region Freshman of the Year Jason Rhoten won for Minnesota State-Mankato at 141 pounds and Augustana's Ryan King took the 149 title before the Bison strung together three straight wins.
Bison senior Paul Carlson won his third straight North Central Conference title at 157 with a 4-3 decision. Carlson indicated the match wasn't as close as the score shows.
"I knew that if I could take him down right away, he would never take me down," Carlson said.
Carlson had a 4-2 lead late when he was penalized one point for stalling.
"I coasted it out," Carlson said.
Mike Fiedler was a 4-2 winner for NDSU at 165 pounds and Thad Pike won by 7-4 decision at 174 to put the Bison well into the lead.
Three-time All-American Brian Kraemer won his first North Central Conference individual title at 197 with a win by fall over South Dakota State's Tim Boldt. Kraemer trailed 2-0 after a Boldt takedown early, but he came back with a thunderous pin.
"We wrestled very well," Maughan said. "We're just waiting to get to the nationals right now. Everything's still on track."
Northern Sun Conference teams in previous years were members of the Midwest Region, which provided competition from several strong programs including Indianapolis, Wisconsin-Parkside, Central Missouri State and six-time national champ Central Oklahoma.
The NCC doubled as its own region until this year when Northern Colorado moved to Division I and left the league at only six wrestling teams.