MONTANANS ON TOP AT NATIONAL WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

from USA Cobra Montana Wrestling

     The 40th annual Asics/Vaughn Junior and Cadet National Championships is the world’s largest wrestling tournament and a major scouting venue for top colleges around the country. For the 18th consecutive year, USA Wrestling has held the event in what may seem to be an unusual location...Fargo, North Dakota. But for some 4000 high school aged wrestlers, Fargo has been the Mecca of the wrestling world where national rankings and college scholarships are earned.

     Team Montana wrestlers from as far east as Sydney and as far west as Missoula are competing in the Olympic wrestling styles of freestyle and Greco Roman with Greco filling the first three days, followed by freestyle competition to close out the week. Cadets 15 and 16 years old initiate the tourney in each of the styles followed by Junior competition for wrestlers aged 17-19.

     After the first day of this week long tourney, two Montana Cadets have earned national respect. Gabe Schroeck and Christopher Wagner of the USA Cobra Montana Wrestling program have battled their way through several rounds of competition in Greco Roman wrestling. Final bouts to determine their placing will commence on Monday, July 19 with Schroeck still in the hunt for a national championship. Schroeck has won 6 straight matches on the first day in the 112 pound class, Wagner is 5-1 at 119 pounds.

     Schroeck, of Clancy, will be a freshman at Helena High and Wagner is a junior at Broadwater High. Wagner won a Montana state wrestling title in high school this year going undefeated and capping the season with a championship title at the Montana Tournament of Champions which combines the various school size classes to crown a “true state champion” in high school wrestling. Both wrestlers went undefeated in Montana in all three wrestling styles this season – folkstyle, freestyle and Greco Roman – earning Montana triple crown awards for their success.  

     The top eight wrestlers in each weight class earn All-American honors which also affords funded access to train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.