Sophomore Jayson Ness is rated No. 1 at 125 pounds in the USA Today/InterMat.NWCA Division I coaches’ poll after going 4-0 last weekend in the National Duals.

His biggest win was 6-4 over previously top-ranked Paul Donahue of Nebraska on Sunday. Ness is now 23-0 with 16 pins after getting one more at the National Duals.

The 16 pins are the most any Division I wrestler has this season and justfour shy of tying theschool record. Ness had been ranked third going into the National Duals. He finished fifth in the NCAA meet a year ago, but has never been rated No. 1 in his career before.

The Gophers also moved up in the team ranking from sixth to fifth after taking fourth place.

The Gophers (8-3) wrestle South Dakota State (0-3) at 2 p.m. this coming Sunday at the Sports Pavilion. Then they will have two away Big Ten meets at Michigan State on Jan. 25 and Michigan on Jan. 26 before wrestling No. 1 Iowa on Feb. 1 at Williams Arena. The Hawkeyes won the National Duals.

Ness is on quite a pace in pins, but the competition gets tougher most of the rest of the season. How many pins do you think Ness will finish the season with?

OTHERS IN RANKINGS

Senior Mack Reiter also won four matches at the National Duals and has moved up from No. 5 to No. 2 at 133 pounds.

Dustin Schlatter is No. 1 at 149.

Manuel Rivera is No. 4 at 141.

Roger Kish is No. 5 at 184.

C.P. Schlatter is No. 7 at 157.

Gabe Dretsch is No. 11 at 174.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 11:50 pm and is filed under Gophers wrestling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.