CHAPEL HILL - In almost every sport, there are places that are considered hallowed. In baseball there is Cooperstown, in horseracing there is Kentucky and in wrestling there is Iowa City, Iowa. This year's NCAA championships will be held March 15-17 at the University of Iowa, the site where legendary coach Dan Gable put college wrestling on the map.
After not having any qualifiers last year, the Blue Devils will be represented on the national level this season. Juniors Tommy Hoang (125 pounds) and Tom Cass (184) both found out that they were national qualifiers after the conclusion of Saturday's ACC championships.
"Wrestling in Iowa, there's no better place in the world," Hoang said prior to hearing the outcome of the coaches' meeting that decided who qualified. "Just walking into that stadium would be a dream that I've had my entire life."
The ACC receives 18 bids for the national tournament. Ten bids go to the winners of each weight class and eight bids go to wild-card wrestlers who are chosen by the coaches following the tournament. Two Duke wrestlers, Hoang and Tim Marcantonio (165), had opportunities to guarantee themselves trips to Iowa, but neither could use the finals to avenge losses from earlier this season.
Hoang had little trouble reaching the finals, easily beating Virginia's Ryan Stewart 15-2 in the first round and North Carolina's Chris Collins 14-4 in the semifinals. Hoang continued to wrestle well through the finals against N.C. State's George Cintron, to whom Hoang lost 7-3 last week in Raleigh. Each wrestler gave up only an escape during regulation time, but in overtime Cintron shot a deep single-leg and took Hoang down, winning the match 3-1.
"Cintron's a very defensive wrestler, so I made him wrestle me," Hoang said of the difference between his two meetings with the Wolfpack's 125-pounder.
"Tommy looked fantastic tonight," Duke coach Clar Anderson added. "I'm pretty sure he'll get [a bid]."
Marcantonio's journey to the finals went a bit differently. The weight class's fifth seed, Duke's 165-pound freshman avenged two regular-season losses before dropping a third in the finals. In the first round, Marcantonio squared off against Maryland's Josh Weidman, a returning ACC runner-up and NCAA qualifier who won 3-0 in their first meeting.
With two takedowns and a reversal, Marcantonio withstood a late charge by Weidman, winning 7-5. Marcantonio beat UNC's Jason Wilson in the second round to face Virginia's George Francesca in the finals.
After a scoreless first, the stronger Francesca stalled Marcantonio's offense and scored three takedowns of his own, taking a 9-2 victory.
"I was a little reluctant, he shut my offense down," Marcantonio said. "I tried to go in loose, but I tensed up right before the match."
Despite his second-place finish, Marcantonio did not qualify for Iowa.
But the same policy that excluded Marcantonio helped an extremely surprised Tom Cass get to Iowa, and nearly did the same for Daegan Smith (197). Cass lost only to the eventual champion, and he won 9-6 in the third-place bout.
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