Skip To Main Content
Skip To Main Content
Redshirt senior Pat Castillo will sing his collegiate swan song at the 2008 NCAA Championships, this weekend in St. Louis.

Wrestling

Huskie Wrestlers Travel to St. Louis for NCAA Championships

March 18, 2008

Complete Bracket in PDF Format Get Acrobat Reader
133-pound Bracket in PDF Format Get Acrobat Reader
141-pound Bracket in PDF Format Get Acrobat Reader
174-pound Bracket in PDF Format Get Acrobat Reader

DeKALB, Ill. - Northern Illinois senior Pat Castillo departed Tuesday for his third and final trip to the NCAA Wrestling Championships, leading a charge of three Huskie wrestlers who will be competing at the national tournament in St. Louis, March 20-22.

Castillo (Western Springs, Ill./Lyons Township), along with teammates Duke Burk (Peoria, Ill./Notre Dame) and Pat McLemore (Hinckley, Ohio/Padua Franciscan), will be vying for individual national championships and all-American honors at the Scottrade Center in the Gateway to the West.

A two-time Mid-American Conference Champion, Castillo enters the tournament as the 10th seed at 133 pounds. He has built a 27-5 record, and is currently riding a 16-match win streak. Castillo's rare losses have all been to opponents ranked in the top-seven nationally, and he holds a 6-5 record against this year's 133-pound NCAA field.

In the opening round, Thursday, Castillo will face Cal Poly's Borislav Novachkov, who is 16-8 on the season. With a win, Castillo would move on the wrestle Christian Smith of Liberty, with a potential round of 16 match against seventh-seed Mike Grey of Cornell.

Making his second appearance in the NCAA Championships, redshirt sophomore Burk will challenge a familiar foe in the tournament's first round. The 174-pounder is set to take on 12th-seeded Nick Hayes of Northwestern. The two split a pair of regular season matches. Burk's 3-1 win over Hayes in a dual meet gave Northern Illinois the boost it needed to oust the fifth-ranked Wildcats 22-19. Hayes got revenge at the Midlands Championships, where he ended Burk's tournament run with a 2-1 win.

Burk earned an at-large berth to the tournament after a 25-5 season that included nine major decisions, three pins and two technical falls. He will compete at his second-straight NCAA Championships. Last year, Burk upset the 11th-seed to move to day two, but was unable to advance to the medal round.

McLemore, a redshirt freshman, turned the MAC Championships' 141-pound bracket upside-down by taking out both the defending champion Eric Kruger and the top seed Drew Lashaway en route to the title. After wrestling to a 13-3 record in an injury-abridged season, McLemore will enter the tournament unseeded and face Oklahoma State's Nathan Morgan, the fourth seed.

ESPNU, ESPN360.com and ESPN will combine for extensive live coverage of the NCAA Championships On Friday, March 21, and Saturday, March 22. On Friday, ESPNU features more than five hours of coverage, with the quarterfinals at 10 a.m. (CST) and the semifinals at 7 p.m. (CST) For the second consecutive year, ESPNU will deliver the semifinals in a "side-by-side" format, allowing viewers to see both semifinal matches in each weight class at the same time.

All three Huskie wrestlers will compete in the opening round, Thursday at 11 a.m. (CST). Updates from St. Louis will be available after each session at www.niuhuskies.com.

Print Friendly Version