The Northern Athletic Collegiate Conference (NAAC) Showcase kicks off tomorrow evening in Milwaukee Wisconsin on the campus of Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) in the Kern Center. Semifinals will get started at 5:30pm with the finals immediately to follow at 7pm. There are 4 teams competing Friday night. All of whom are familiar with each other. MSOE is the host school and joining the showcase will be the Lakeland Muskies, Concordia Falcons and Aurora Spartans.
The duals will be very exciting as there is no clear favorite this year as nobody is undefeated amongst the other three teams in the field. Let me walk you through it.
Against the field MSOE is 2-1 in duals this year. They have defeated Concordia 44-6, and Aurora 27-18, but lost a close one to Lakeland 21-22.
The Lakeland muskies beat MSOE as I said 22-21 and Concordia 48-6 but they fell to Aurora 12-40.
Aurora defeated Concordia and Lakeland in their duals but lost to MSOE 27-18. Concordia is the only team that does not have a win against one of the three in the field, but they will be looking to play spoiler tomorrow night.
Four solid programs that have been steadily rising over the last couple of years will square off. MSOE is currently 5-4 this season, Lakeland 8-3, Aurora is 7-6 and Concordia is 2-8.
At 174 pounds keep an eye on Toren Vandenbush for MSOE as he is one of the best in the country, currently ranked 13th. Vandenbush is only a sophomore and comes from Random Lake Wisconsin and a family of very successful wrestlers.
In addition MSOE has 6 total wrestlers ranked in their region (Regional qualifier) including freshman Lane Anderson at 125 pounds who was a State Champion last season for Amery High School.
The Lakeland Muskies have 5 of their 10 wrestlers ranked in region 7 and none of the 5 are seniors. In other words they will be returning many of the key pieces to their lineup next season and are clearly on the rise. Two of the ranked wrestlers are the Hillshafer brothers, Caleb 125 and Jacob 141. Both of which are freshmen.
Leading Concordia’s team has been an underclassmen. Sophomore at 133 pounds Anastacio Martinez will look to earn a few more wins Friday night to better position his seed at region 7 in a few weeks.
Finally, Aurora has 5 ranked wrestlers in region 7. Unlike Lakeland, Aurora is senior heavy as 4 of the 5 ranked are seniors. The lone man is Jake Penzato who is a junior at 141 pounds.
Tomorrow night should have both an exciting semifinal and a very exciting final at the NAAC Showcase. Stop in to watch it on the campus of MSOE or tune in and watch every match live on the WIwrestle Rokfin channel!
