This will be the second season of Missouri Duals, where Mizzou will take on local schools at lower divisions. It serves as a great way to kick off the season and let all the wrestlers get some home dual matches while highlighting local talent at different levels. Last season Mizzou went 29-1 across all three duals with 23 bonus point wins while beating Central Methodist, Drury, and Maryville. This season they’ve got Central Methodist, Maryville, and Central Missouri.
The duals featured 15 different wrestlers, with only five wrestlers competing in all three duals. This is likely to be similar, with wrestlers that are healthy getting matches in and potentially changing weights for different matches. There aren’t likely to be too many takeaways but could feature the debut for wrestlers in Mizzou singlets like Zan Fugitt, Kollin Rath, and Luke Geog. Also look out for any number of talented freshmen to get opportunities to compete.
Central Methodist:
Division: NAIA
Last season Central Methodist took nine wrestlers to the NAIA national championships and finished 14th with two All-Americans. This season they’re ranked #7 with 8 ranked wrestlers. They’re highlighted by three-time All-American Roman Garcia at 174lbs. They also brought in two-time JUCO AA Riley Bettich at 125lbs who is currently ranked 10th. Other ranked wrestlers include #10 Brice Coleman (157), #22 Brayden Forman (157), #13 Drake Jenkins (165), #13 Kevin Olavarria (174), and #14 Griffin Ray (184).
Last season Mizzou won this dual 46-0 with seven bonus point wins and three close decisions. Roman Garcia took on a bumped up Max Mayfield and gave him a tight 4-2 match. CMU already has a dual win this season, beating Avila 29-18 to start their year.
Maryville:
Division: Division II
Last season Maryville had three NCAA D2 qualifiers, two All-Americans, and a 21st place NCAA finish. They graduated both All-Americans and their other qualifer is no longer listed on the roster. Qualifying in other divisions is different than Division I though, and requires placing top four in their region. What that means is that quality wrestlers sometimes have a bad tournament and without wildcards like in Division I they end up missing the tournament.
Maryville doesn’t have any wrestlers ranked on InterMat, who only goes to the top 15. When looking at Wrestlestat rankings however they do have notable wrestlers #17 Elijah Almarinez (125) and #34 Orest Nazarchuk (184). Last season the Tigers won this dual 41-3, with the lone loss coming to returning D2 champ Cole Ritter over Joel Mylin. Outside of that they had eight bonus point wins.
Central Missouri:
Division: Division II
Last season Central Missouri had six qualifiers and two All-Americans to finish 17th at NCAA’s. They return qualifiers at 133, 141, and 285. Their ranked wrestlers include #4 Drew Stanfield (133), #4 James Wright (141), #14 Garret Lyons (149), and #4 Torin Forsyth. Drew Stanfield was on Mizzou’s roster for two seasons before transferring to UCM and having immediate success to start and qualify. Former Mizzou heavyweight Seth Nevills isn’t officially on staff, but has frequently been helping out and working with their upperweights as well.
Other names to look out for include Colin McAlister at 174, who spent a year redshirting at Nebraska and in his second season at UCM. There is also Ayden Flores who had some quality wins at D2 last season. Last season Mizzou took on Drury for their 3rd match at the Missouri Duals while CMU went 3-0 against Missouri Valley, Central Methodist, and Drury.