Noon Qualifies for NCAA Tournament at Big 12 Championships

Saturday, March 5

Kansas City, Mo.

All Day

University of Northern Colorado

Big 12 Conference Tournament

3/6/2016 3:08:00 PM | Wrestling

Noon, De Luca, and Box earned places on the podium on day 2 of the Championships

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Big 12 Conference Championships came to an end on Sunday afternoon, with UNC landing in 10^th place with 30.5 team points. The Bears put three wrestlers on the podium, including two fourth-placers and one sixth-placer.

"Overall, I think we wrestled well this weekend," head coach Troy Nickerson said. "We wrestled to our seeds in most of the weights. Trent qualifying for the national tournament for the second time was definitely big. We'll find out later this week if anyone else will earn wild card bids."

The Bears automatically qualified 197-pounder Trent Noon for the 2016 NCAA Tournament (March 17-19), with a 2-2 tourney record overall for the senior. Noon started of the Sunday morning session picking up a win over Jacob Smith of West Virginia to secure his NCAA qualification. The win would also advance him to the third place match, where he would fall in sudden victory to Iowa State wrestler Pat Downey.

At 157 pounds, Eleazar De Luca went 1-1 on the day, winning his first match against Logan Breitenbach of Iowa State to advance to the third place match. His opponent in the medal match, Dylan Cottrell (WVU), however, would dominate the match 6-0, giving De Luca a fourth place overall finish with a tournament record of 2-2. De Luca finished higher than expected, as he was given the No. 6 seed in the tourney.

Timmy Box also competed in the consolation semi-finals, falling to NDSU's Clayton Ream to move to the fifth place match. His final match of the tournament was against SDSU's Alex Kocer, where he would land a sixth place overall finish, going 1-3 throughout the tournament.

Oklahoma State took the team title with 161 points, followed by Oklahoma with 100.

1. Oklahoma State (161)
2. Oklahoma (100)
3. Iowa State (87)
4. South Dakota State (77)
5. Wyoming (71.5)
6. West Virginia (65.5)
7. North Dakota State (62.5)
8. Utah Valley (60.5)
9. Air Force (39.5)
10. Northern Colorado (30.5)

At-large bids will be released by the NCAA on Wednesday, March 9^th. The bids will finalize the list of 330 wrestlers who will be traveling to New York, New York for the 2016 NCAA Division I Tournament in two weeks.

For information on repeats of the televised finals, see below.

FULL LIST OF TELEVISION BROADCASTS (Live, Delayed and Replay)

For more information on the Big 12 Wrestling Championship, including full results, visit Big12Sports.com. For more information on the Bears this season, check outUNCBears.com, visit their official Facebook page, and follow them on Twitter at @UNCBearsWrestle.

CHAMPIONSHIP CENTRAL

Day Two Results:
149:
Consolation Semis: Clayton Ream (NDSU) over Timmy Box, MD 15-5
Fifth Place Match: Alex Kocer (SDSU) over Timmy Box, MD 15-7

157:
Consolation Semis: Eleazar De Luca over Logan Breitenbach (Iowa State), Dec. 8-3
Third Place Match: Dylan Cottrell (West Virginia) over Eleazar De Luca, Dec. 6-0

197:
Consolation Semis: Trent Noon over Jacob Smith (West Virginia), Dec. 3-2
Third Place Match: Pat Downey (Iowa State) over Trent Noon, Dec. 3-1 SV1