The Navy wrestling team (0-1, 0-0 EIWA) returns home to play host to the 41st annual Navy Classic on Saturday at the Wesley Brown Field House beginning at 10:00 am.  Having won the team title in 20 of the 40 years the tournament has been held, the Mids will battle 15 teams — Air Force, American, Brown, Bucknell, Campbell, Cleveland State, Delaware Valley, Edinboro, George Mason, Indiana, Kent State, Michigan State, Ohio, Old Dominion, Oregon State — for the 2018 Navy Classic crown.

Classic Nuggets
There are 12 nationally-ranked wrestlers among this year's field with at least one ranked wrestler in six of the 10 weight classes, including four at 125 pounds. There will be a new champion crowned in seven of the 10 weight classes. Back to defend their 2017 Navy Classic title are Navy's Nicholas Gil (Sr / Crystal Lake, Ill.) at 141 pounds, Brown's Christian Lafragola at 184 pounds and Oregon State's Corey Griego at 197 pounds.

Navy is among the 14 teams who have combined to win the 40 previously-wrestled Navy Classics.  Navy claimed the title a year ago when it crowned three individual champions (141 Nicholas Gil, 165 Drew Daniels, 174 Jadaen Bernstein) and muscled its way past second-place Purdue by 12 points.  Among this year's 16-team field, outside of Navy, the only other team that has previously won the Navy Classic is Kent State in 2012.  A different team has won the tournament crown in each of the last six years (2012 Kent State, 2013 Wisconsin, 2014 Chattanooga, 2015 Princeton, 2016 Indiana, 2017 Navy).

Projected Navy Lineup
Wt - Wrestler (Class, overall record, dual record)
• 125 - Jacob Allen (Fr, 4-1, 1-0)  / Aslan Kilic (So, 1-2, 0-0) / Logan Treaster (So, 0-0, 0-0)
• 133 - Casey Cobb (So, 4-2, 0-1 ) / Cody Trybus (So, 0-0, 0-0)
• 141 - #15 Nicholas Gil (Sr, 4-1, 0-1) / Kyle Trybus (So, 0-0, 0-0)
• 149 - Adam Davis (Fr, 0-0, 0-0) / Morgan Fuenffinger (Fr, 0-0, 0-0) / Chris Hisey (Fr, 0-0, 0-0) / Wyatt Long (So, 2-2, 0-0)
• 157 - Zach Elvin (Jr, 5-1, 0-0) / Connor Prince (Jr, 3-3, 0-1)
• 165 - Jonathan Carrera (Sr, 4-1, 0-0)
• 174 - Spencer Carey (Jr, 1-3, 0-1) / Andrew Buckley (So, 2-2, 0-0)
• 184 - Alex Benoit (Jr, 5-1, 0-0) / Anthony Cable (Sr, 3-3, 0-1) / Connor Doyle (Sr, 3-2, 0-0)
• 197 - Joshua Roetman (Jr, 1-0, 1-0)
• 285 - Andrew Piehl (Jr, 0-1, 0-1) / Thomas Ott (Sr, 1-1, 0-0) / Riley Smith (Fr, 0-0, 0-0)

Mids In the Rankings
141 - Nicholas Gil
#15 Intermat / #20 Flowrestling / #11 Amateur Wrestling News / #13 The Open Mat / #12 Wrestling Insider

149 - Jared Prince
#20 Flowrestling / #20 The Open Mat / #12 Wrestling Insider

Last Time Out
• Nine of the 20 wrestlers who competed for Navy at the Jonathan Kaloust Bearcat Open last Sunday placed among the top six in their respective weight class.
• Nicholas Gil has now won three tournaments over his career, capturing titles at the Eastern Michigan Open and All-Academy Championship a year ago. He won three of his five matches by way of dec and one by major. Franklin & Marshall's Brett Kulp bowed out of the championship match due to injury in the opening period.
• Freshman Jacob Allen won his first three matches of the day before falling to Binghamton's Audey Ashkar, 2-1, in the 125-pound finals. Allen has been impressive in the first two weeks of his collegiate career having also recorded a dual win over Ohio State's Brakan Mead.
• Taking fourth at 133 pounds was sophomore Casey Cobb, who sat out a year ago due to NCAA rules. Cobb dropped a 5-2 decision to tournament runner-up Vitali Arujau of Cornell in the quarters before battling his way back. Cobb won three straight matches, but was unable to wrestle the third-place match against Wyoming Seminary's Ramazan Attasauov because of the NCAA rule for the number of matches you can wrestle in a day.
• Navy had four wrestlers in action at 157 pounds with two of them placing. Junior Zach Elvin, who wrestled for the Mids as a freshman, returned the mat and put together a strong showing. After losing a 9-1 decision to Cornell's Adam Santoro in the quarters, he bounced back to win three straight, including matches against teammates Jack Stanton-Taddeo (2-0) and Connor Prince (5-1). Elvin and his foe Hunter Ladnier of Harvard both defaulted in the third-place match. Prince, meanwhile, took sixth at 157 pounds.
• Taking third at 165 pounds was senior Jonathan Carrera, who won his final four matches of the day, including his third-place match against Josh Kim of Harvard who he beat by major decision.
• Navy also wrestled well at 184 pounds where Alex Benoit, Anthony Cableand Connor Doyle would all place.
• Benoit lost his opening match by tech fall to Franklin & Marshall's Anthony Mancini, but battled back to win five in a row and defeat teammate Anthony Cable for third place. Doyle fell to the backside of the bracket following a loss in the quarters to Mancini, but came back to defeat Lehigh's Eli Grape for fifth place.

Up Next
• Next on the docket for the Midshipmen is the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational slated for next Friday and Saturday (Nov. 30-Dec. 1).
• The Las Vegas Convention Center will serve as the host venue for the two-day tournament slated to begin Friday at 9:00 am PT / 12:00 pm ET.
• This will be Navy's 11th overall appearance at the CKLV Invitational and fifth under head coach Joel Sharratt.
• The Mids placed 22nd out of 46 teams a year ago with Jadaen Bernstein capturing his 100th collegiate win en route to taking fifth place at 174 pounds.



2018 Navy Classic
Date:  Saturday, Nov. 17
Venue:  Wesley Brown Field House
Participating teams:  Air Force, American, Brown, Bucknell, Campbell, Cleveland State, Delaware Valley, Edinboro, George Mason, Indiana, Kent State, Michigan State, Navy, Ohio, Old Dominion, Oregon State
Tickets:  Free Admission
Live Scoring: FloArena will be providing live scoring / there will be NO video stream

Projected session times:
10:00 am - preliminary rounds
2:30 pm - semifinals
5:00 pm - finals

IMPORTANT: A couple of notes for traveling fans ...
• Vehicle access to the Naval Academy is limited to those with a Department of Defense identification card.
• It is suggested that fans park at Truman Park and Ride (Map / Directions) and ride the shuttle to Wesley Brown Field House at the Naval Academy. Shuttle service will begin at 9:00 am and run through 8:00 pm. Please note there will be shuttles taking fans to the Navy football game and to the Navy Classic, so please pay attention to the signage in the front window of the shuttle so you are dropped off at the appropriate venue.
• A government issued identification card must be carried and presented by visitors to the USNA prior to being allowed onto The Yard.

There are several events going on and around the Yard on Saturday, so we ask for your patience but also to plan accordingly.
• At 9:00 am on Saturday, Navy is hosting the commissioning ceremony for the USS Sioux City which is located approximately across the street from the Wesley Brown Field House.
• At 3:30 pm, Navy plays host to Tulsa in its final home football game of the season. Additionally, it is Scout Day, so there will be numerous scouts touring the Yard.
• Navy also has a home squash tournament and a diving competition on Saturday.

### Go Navy ###