DEKALB, Ill. – Brit Wilson heads a quintet of Northern Illinois University wrestlers that will travel to St. Louis next week to compete in the 2021 NCAA Wrestling Championships at the Enterprise Center March 18-20.
 
Wilson, Bryce West, Izzak Olejnik, Anthony Cheloni and Mason Kauffman will represent NIU at the NCAA Championships. The five Huskie qualifiers are the most for NIU since 2017 also when NIU sent five wrestlers to the national tournament.
 
Wilson, who won his second consecutive Mid-American Conference title at 184 and was named the Most Outstanding Wrestler of the 2021 MAC Championships, earned his third consecutive NCAA bid. The Mexico, Mo. native is the No. 7 seed at 184, the highest ranked Huskie at the NCAA Championships since Ben Heizer was the No. 2 seed, also at 184.
 
Wilson will face DeAndre Nassar of Cleveland State. Wilson defeated Nassar, 10-4, last season.
 
B. West is making his return to the NCAA Championships, wrestling as a No. 33 seed at 133. West, a 2019 qualifier, will face off against conference foe Cole Rhone of Bloomsburg in a pigtail bout. It will be the first meeting between the two.
 
A trio of Huskies will be making their first appearances in the NCAA Championships, and one has earned his second career bid.
 
Olejnik, who qualified for the NCAAs last year, but was unable to compete due to the event being canceled due to COVID-19, will compete as a No. 18 seed and will face off against Dan Braunagel of in-state foe Illinois at 165. Olejnik won the previous meeting between the two, 7-5, last season at the Convocation Center.
 
Cheloni, who earned his first NCAA bid by virtue of his third-place finish at the MAC Championships, will square off against No. 7 seed Jonathan Millner of Appalachian State.
 
Kauffman garnered the first NCAA bid of his career by earning one of the at-large selections at 174. The Huskie junior, who moved up two weight classes this season, finished fifth at the MAC Championships and will face Austin Murphy of Campbell in his initial match of the tournament.
 
There will be a complete preview of the 2021 NCAA Championships on NIUHuskies.com next week.
 
-NIU-