Wolverines Open Season at UNC Duals

OREM, Utah — The Utah Valley University wrestling team will officially open its 2021-22 campaign on Sunday by heading to Greeley, Colo., to take part at the UNC Duals. The Wolverines will first face a trio of non-Division I opponents on Sunday before capping the day with a Big 12 dual against the host Northern Colorado Bears.

UVU will open the day by facing Doane University at 9:30 a.m. The Wolverines will then take on North Idaho College at 11 a.m., before wrestling Northwest Kansas Technical College at 2 p.m. Utah Valley will then close the UNC Duals by facing the host Bears at 4 p.m. All four contests will be contested at UNC's Bank of Colorado Arena and live results will also be available for each dual by visiting TrackWrestling.com. UVU's opening dual against Doane and the last against UNC will also be streamed live on FloWrestling (subscription required). Unfortunately, UVU's contests against NIC and NWKTC will not be streamed as only one mat of action will be streamed throughout the day.

"We're looking forward to Sunday," head UVU coach Greg Williams said. "Northern Colorado is loaded. They got a couple of transfers last year and have a pretty similar team to us; so that one should be a fun match. We'll also have three matches before that one that will give us a chance to wrestle a combination of our starters and the guys who are right behind them. Those will be a good opportunity to for us to see where we are at, and we can't wait to get the season officially underway on Sunday."

The Wolverines will open the year ranked 28th on the FloWrestling Team Tournament and 29th on the WIN Magazine Tournament Power Index poll. During the condensed 2020-21 campaign, UVU posted its highest NCAA Championship team finish in program history by placing 21st with 20.5 total points. The Wolverines also went 2-4 in duals last season with wins over No. 22 Stanford and California Baptist.

The Wolverines welcome back a pair of returning All-Americans in redshirt senior Demetrius Romero and redshirt junior Taylor LaMont. After taking sixth at the 2021 NCAA Championships at 174 pounds this past spring, Romero will drop back down to compete at 165 pounds this year while LaMont will remain at 125, a weight where he finished fifth in the nation a season ago.

Both grapplers are also three-time NCAA qualifiers for the Wolverines and Romero is a two-time Big 12 champion, as he won the Big 12 crown at 174 last season and also at 165 in 2019. LaMont, who too reached the Big 12 finals a season ago, will open the season ranked as high as sixth nationally by FloWrestling, while Romero is currently ranked eighth nationally by InterMat. The two grapplers combined to go 32-5 on the mat in 2020-21, as Romero went 19-2 while LaMont finished with a 13-3 clip. LaMont is scheduled to miss Sunday's opener, however, as he wrestled his way to a fifth-place finish at the U23 World Championships at 55 kg in Greco-Roman competition on Nov. 1-2 in Belgrade, Serbia.

The Wolverines will welcome back four returning NCAA qualifiers this season in all, as redshirt freshman Ty Smith too is back as well as sophomore Cameron Hunsaker. Smith is scheduled to bump up a weight class and compete at 141 pounds in 2021-22, while Hunsaker will remain at 149. Smith went 8-7 at 133 pounds last year while Hunsaker compiled a 10-9 clip at 149.

UVU will enter Sunday with five grapplers currently nationally ranked led by LaMont checking in at sixth at 125. The two-time Big 12 champ Romero is next at No. 8 at 165, while freshman transfer Haiden Drury is 27th at 133, 2021 NCAA qualifier Smith is 32nd at 141, and sophomore transfer Hunter Cruz is 33rd at 184. Hunsaker is also a current honorable mention on the latest FloWrestling rankings.