Michigan
Big Ten Championships
Wolverines Set to Kick Off Postseason at 2024 Big Ten Championships
3/5/2024 1:17:00 PM | Wrestling
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The No. 9-ranked University of Michigan wrestling team (8-4) will kick off the postseason this weekend, traveling to College Park, Md., to participate in the 2024 Big Ten Conference Championships. The event will be hosted by the University of Maryland on Saturday and Sunday (March 9-10) at the XFINITY Center.
The Big Ten Championships will take place in four sessions over the course of two days. Wrestling will begin on Saturday (March 9) with the first session slated to start at 10 a.m. with the first and quarterfinal rounds of all weights. Consolation action and semifinal matches will take place Saturday evening at 5 p.m. The Sunday (March 9) session will feature consolation finals at noon and championship finals slated to begin at 4:30 p.m. The Big Ten Network and B1G+ will provide live linear and streaming coverage of all four sessions.
U-M has won 12 Big Ten team championships (1929, '38, '44, '53, '55, '56, '60, '63, '64, '65, '73, 2022) and has produced the second-most individual champions (131) in the conference (Iowa is first with 210).
Notes
• Michigan is in search of its 13th conference title in school history after breaking a nearly 50-year drought with the 2022 Big Ten team championship. U-M owns the fourth-most conference team titles in Big Ten history with 12 (1929, '38, '44, '53, '55, '56, '60, '63, '64, '65, '73, 2022).
• With 131 conference individual titles in program history (coming from 88 different wrestlers), the Wolverines boast the second most of any Big Ten school behind Iowa with 210. U-M has claimed at least one champion in 13 of the last 19 seasons, including four over the last three seasons. Mason Parris captured the heavyweight crown last year when U-M hosted the Big Ten Championships at Crisler Center.
• Graduate student Austin Gomez is a previous Big Ten champion, winning the 149-pound title in 2022 while representing Wisconsin. Graduate student Shane Griffith also claimed a conference title while at Stanford, winning the 165-pound crown at the 2020 Pac-12 Championships and advancing to the finals four times. Both Gomez and Griffith earned Co-Most Outstanding Wrestler honors the year they won their conference title; Gomez shared his award with Michigan's Myles Amine in 2022.
• Graduate student Will Lewan and fifth-year senior Cameron Amine previously have reached the Big Ten finals, taking second place at 157 and 165 pounds, respectively, in 2022. Lewan will make his fifth Big Ten Championships appearance, as will graduate students Michael DeAugustino and Lucas Davison, while Amine and senior/junior Dylan Ragusin will wrestle for the fourth consecutive year. Jaden Bullock is set to make his second appearance and first since his true freshman year in 2021.
• The Wolverines earned top-five Big Ten seeds at six weights, most notably Ragusin, who earned the top seed at 133 pounds, and Gomez and Griffith, who garnered the No. 2 seeds at 149 and 174 pounds, respectively. U-M's other highest seeds are Davison (third, heavyweight), freshman Sergio Lemley (fifth, 141) and Bullock (sixth, 184). All seeds will be finalized at Friday's pre-tournament coaches meeting.
• Michigan placed fifth at the 2023 Big Ten Championships with 84.5 points. Michigan had seven total placewinners, most notably Parris' first-place finish at heavyweight. Lewan and Matt Finesilver took third place at 157 and 184 pounds, respectively, while Amine placed fourth at 165.
• The Wolverines wrapped their Big Ten dual slate with a 5-3 record to finish sixth in the regular-season conference standings. Michigan earned three ranked wins in Big Ten dual action, most notably a 24-11 home win against No. 2 Iowa but dropped its three other top-10 matchups to Penn State, Ohio State and Nebraska. Michigan has posted a stellar 35-13 Big Ten dual record under fifth-year head coach Sean Bormet.
• In his week off between the end of the dual season and the conference tournament, Gomez qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics by reaching the finals of the Pan American Qualifier last Friday (March 1) in Acapulco. Gomez, who represents Mexico in international competition, went 3-0 at 65kg freestyle, earning a 6-3 win over Canada's Lachlan McNeil in the semifinals. He also used a big second-period comeback, scoring 14 unanswered points, to tech former Penn State NCAA champion Nick Lee 22-12 in the quarterfinals. It will be Gomez's first Olympic Games.
• Gomez is 7-1 at 149 pounds since joining the Wolverines in December as a transfer -- and after relocating to Ann Arbor last summer as a member of the Cliff Keen Wrestling Club. He has defeated ranked opponents in four of his seven bouts, including a 3-2 decision against Indiana's No. 13 Graham Rooks. His only loss of the season came against Nebraska's No. 1 Ridge Lovett, 11-4, after sacrificing an early seven points in the first period.
• Ragusin owns a 22-1 record on the season and went 8-1 in duals after coming out of redshirt prior to U-M's Big Ten opener at Maryland (Jan. 12). He was named the NCAA's Wrestler of the Week after earning a pair of top-10 wins against Penn State's No. 4 Aaron Nagao (Fall 7:28, Jan. 19) and Rutgers' No. 8 Dylan Shawver (8-5, Jan. 21), while is only loss came against Nebraska's No. 19 Jacob Van Dee, 3-2, on a locked-hands call. While in redshirt, Ragusin won tournaments at the Michigan State Open, Cleveland State Open and Midlands Championships.
• Griffith posted a perfect 9-0 record in duals, including a stretch of three straight ranked wins and four total in dual meets. Among his notable wins, he cruised to a 12-1 major decision against Iowa's No. 8 Patrick Kennedy, used a third-period rideout to beat Ohio State's No. 11 Rocco Welsh 2-1, and earned a 4-1 overtime decision over South Dakota State's No. 4 Cade DeVos. He has won seven straight matches since suffering his lone loss of the season and defaulting out of the CKLV Invitational.
• Freshman Sergio Lemley has faced ranked opponents in seven of his last nine matches over the second semester, including three in the top 10, and went 5-2 in those ranked matches. His biggest win of the season was a 14-2 major decision against Iowa's No. 1 Real Woods, featuring a reversal, takedown and eight back points. He also dropped close decisions to Penn State's No. 2 Beau Bartlett (7-5) and Nebraska's No. 7 Brock Hardy (13-9). Lemley is 15-5 in his rookie campaign.
• Davison owns a 14-3 record at heavyweight with 11 bonus wins. He has beaten six ranked wrestlers, including Rutgers' No. 7 Yarasalu Slavikouski (4-0) and Iowa's No. 28 Bradley Hill (11-2) in Big Ten duals. Davison reached the 100-win milestone earlier this season with his 19-3 technical fall against Michigan State's Josh Terrill (Jan. 14) and has since improved to 105-34 -- and 67-19 over his last three seasons at heavyweight. Graduate student Lewan is also nearing the 100-win milestone with a 93-35 career record.
• Senior/junior Bullock has enjoyed a big breakout season at 184 pounds after redshirting in 2021-22 and missing nearly all 2022-23 with injury. He is 15-8, including six wins against ranked opponents, and owns nine bonus wins. Bullock started for the Wolverines at 174 pounds as a true freshman in 2020-21 and went 3-6 that season. Among his losses were two to Michigan State's Layne Malczewski. Bullock won the rematch this season, defeating the No. 23-ranked Spartan 8-4 in the dual.
Players Mentioned
