Seven Laker wrestlers qualified for the NJCAA National Tournament through the NJCAA Region XI qualifier. At 125 Kevin Saravia lost his first match of the day, and then was unable to continue the rest of the day due to an injury and placed 5th and earned a bid to the National Tournament. At 133 #6 Jordin James lost his semifinal match to #2 Justin Folley of Ellsworth, in his next match his pinned Arie Reyes of NIACC to advance to the 3rd place bout where he lost #7 D'Andre Brumfield of Iowa Western placing 4th and earning a trip to the National Tournament. At 141 seventh ranked Anthony Fisher placed 3rd going 1-2 on the day recording a major decision and a trip to the National Tournament along the way. At 149 #8 David Hollingsworth III placed third, also picking up a major decision and a berth to the National Tournament. At 157 unranked "Kaz" Anthony Maia upset #3 Steven Lawrence of Ellsworth in the semifinals but was unable to upset #2 Ethan Karsten of Iowa Central losing 6-5 in the finals. Head Coach Cody Alesch was clearly impressed with his performance when he said that "Kaz Maia stuck out to me today. He fought from start to finish and he should feel good about where he is at entering the national championships." At 165 3rd ranked Bunmi Smith took second place losing a hard fought match against Jose Rodriguez of Iowa Central 11-6 in the finals. At 184 #7 Isaiah Cox also lost a hard fought match finals 6-5 to Ottis Peeler of Iowa Western. Despite a 4th place finish as a team Head Coach Cody Alesch knows his team can do better "we are a better team than we showed today. We had many matches in control and ended up losing. This time of year you have to close out matches and fight through the adversities and today we did not do a very good job of that. We fought hard at times but our expectations are to fight for 7 minutes and win when we step on the mat. Three guys fought into the finals, however coming up short in all three was a tough way to end the day. We have a young group who work hard and love to compete. They will regroup and get better between now and Nationals.''
Complete team results can be found at this link