Chris Vassar Earns At-Large Bid To 2016 NCAA Wrestling Championships At Madison Square Garden
March 08, 2016 | Wrestling
INDIANAPOLIS – Gardner-Webb wrestler Chris Vassar earned an at-large bid Tuesday to compete at the 2016 NCAA Wrestling Championships in the 149-pound weight class.
Vassar (New Cumberland, Pa. / Cedar Cliff HS) is the first at-large qualifier for Gardner-Webb since the program joined the Division I ranks. He joins automatic qualifiers Boyce Cornwell (Conyers, Ga. / Heritage HS) and Austin Trott (Kingsland, Ga. / Camden County HS) this season.
The NCAA Championships will be held March 17-19 in New York's famed Madison Square Garden.
Cornwell finished third at the SoCon Championships to earn one of the league's three allocations at 285 pounds. Trott won the 165-pound title at the Championships and will make his second appearance at the NCAA Championships – with the first coming in 2014 as a redshirt freshman.
The trio of NCAA qualifiers marks the highest number for Gardner-Webb since head coach Daniel Elliott's senior season in 2006 – when GWU sent four men to the NCAA Championships in Oklahoma City.
Vassar posted a combined 18-7 record this season, wrestling primarily at 149 pounds. He entered the SoCon Championships as the No. 1 seed and earned All-Southern Conference honors in 2015-2016.
Vassar got through the first two rounds of the event unscathed before falling, 3-1, to SIU Edwardsville wrestler John Fahy in the title bout. He entered the event with an RPI of No. 12 and was 29th in the NCAA Coaches' Ranking Panel.
Gardner-Webb (9-6 dual record, 6-1 SoCon) won a share of the 2015-16 SoCon regular season – its first since joining the league in 2011-2012 – and finished third at Saturday's SoCon Championships in Asheville, N.C.
The Runnin' Bulldogs have sent at least one wrestler to the NCAA Championships in each of the last four seasons.
