NU Sends Six to NCAA Championships in Iowa City

The ninth-ranked Nebraska wrestling team (11-6, 1-3) will travel to Iowa City, Iowa, this weekend for the 2001 NCAA Championships at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Opening rounds of the national championships begin at 11 a.m. on Thursday, March 15, with the championship finals slated for a 1 p.m. start on Saturday, March 17. The finals will be aired on espn2 later that day at 5 p.m.

Six Huskers qualified for NCAAs after placing in the top three of their individual weight classes at the Big 12 Championships.

Four of the six have earned top-four seeds for this weekend's action, including defending 197-pound champion Brad Vering.

Vering, who last season became the first native Nebraskan to win a national title, is seeded second and will be vying to become the first Husker to take NCAA gold twice.

At 157 pounds, junior Bryan Snyder is fresh off his third Big 12 title in as many tries and will be looking to avoid last year's disaster in the first-round of the national tournament.

The Easton, Pa., native brought a 19-match win streak into a first round matchup against unseeded Shaun Shapert of Edinboro and looked to be a favorite to take the national title. But Shapert shocked Snyder and scored one of the biggest upsets of the tournament with a 5-4 win.

Seeded second this season, Snyder brings a 24-1 record into a first-round match with Coppin State's Sulieman Mumin and needs just one more win for his 100th career victory.

Senior Todd Beckerman enters the championships as the No. 3 seed at 133 pounds. The Crofton, Md., product is coming off his second consecutive runner-up performance at Big 12s. At 21-4, Beckerman is primed for a run at a possible finals matchup with defending champion, Eric Juergens of Iowa.

After becoming just the fifth freshman in school history to take home a conference crown, redshirt freshman Jason Powell has his sites set on even bigger things. The No. 4 seed at 125 pounds, Powell is 19-6 this season and could open some eyes this weekend.

Also an underdog is senior Ati Conner at 174 pounds. At 13-11, his overall record does not draw much attention, but he broke down the wall at the Big 12 Championships with two dominating wins over top-10 opponents. In his first career NCAA Championship appearance, the Goleta, Calif., native notched a No. 12 seed.

Junior Tony Denke, who is 6-5, will also be making his first NCAA appearance after a third-place finish at Big 12s. Four of Denke's five losses have come to the nation's top-three ranked wrestlers.

NCAA Husker History: Nebraska has finished among the top 20 teams at nationals in 10 of the last 12 years. The Huskers finished the 2000 NCAA Championships eighth. NU's highest finish ever came in 1993, with a third-place finish, including six All-Americans.