Beavers 19th in NWCA poll
October 27, 2015 | Wrestling
The Oregon State wrestling team is ranked 19th in the preseason USA Today/National Wrestling Coaches Association Division I Coaches Poll.
The Beavers received 57 points in the voting. They are the only Pacific-12 Conference team in the Top 25; Arizona State (23) and Stanford (2) also received votes.
OSU has seven wrestlers with NCAA returning, the most in coach Jim Zalesky's 10-year tenure here. He was the 2015 Pac-12 Coach of the Year and is 111-42-2 overall at OSU, with five Coach of the Year awards and six Pacific-12 Conference championships on his resume.
Heavyweight Amarveer Dhesi, 125-pounder Ronnie Bresser, 165-pounder Seth Thomas and 197-pounder Cody Crawford are ranked in the preseason individual Top 20 by InterMat and The Open Mat. Thomas and Crawford advanced to the NCAA tournament in 2015; Dhesi and Palmer advanced in 2014 before redshirting last season.
Oklahoma State is the preseason No. 1, followed by Penn State, Michigan, Iowa and Ohio State.
OSU will face six teams in the USA Today/NWCA preseason Top 25 during the regular season: Michigan (3); Nebraska (10); Rutgers (18); Oklahoma (20), West Virginia (21) and Northern Iowa (23). Future opponents ASU, Stanford and Central Michigan also received votes.
The Beavers open the 2015-16 campaign at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 with the annual intrasquad match at Gill Coliseum. They start the regular season at the Northeast Duals in Albany, N.Y., on Nov. 15 with bouts against West Virginia, Northern Iowa and Nebraska.
For more information on the OSU wrestling team, follow the club's official Twitter account at Twitter.com/OSU_Wrestling or by Facebook at Facebook.com/OregonStateWrestling.
