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Bucknell's David Thompson Earns At-Large Entry into NCAA Wrestling Championships
March 11, 2009
LEWISBURG, Pa. – Bucknell sophomore 184-pounder David Thompson (West Liberty, Ohio/Graham Local) earned an at-large entry into the NCAA Wrestling Championships on Wednesday, meaning the Bison will now be sending a school-record six student-athletes to the national meet in St. Louis on March 19-21. At last week’s EIWA Championships in Philadelphia, Thompson placed fifth in a weight class containing four automatic NCAA qualifiers. Thompson then went into a national pool of 184-pounders for one of the six remaining at-large spots into the NCAA field, and he was one of the six selected. This will be Thompson’s first trip to NCAAs, and he will be joining teammates Andy Rendos (Brockway, Pa./Brockway), David Marble (Harpursville, N.Y./Harpursville Central), Shane Riccio (Warren, N.J./Watchung Hills), Derek Reber (Lewisburg, Pa./Lewisburg Area) and Kevin LeValley (Hugo, Colo./Limon) in St. Louis. Rendos and Marble will both be making their third NCAA appearances, Riccio will be going back for the second straight year, and Reber, LeValley and Thompson will all be going for the first time. Thompson entered the EIWA Championships as the No. 5 seed. After bowing out of the main draw in the quarterfinals, a 4-3 decision over Eddie Ebewo of East Stroudsburg brought Thompson within one win of the top four, but he ran into second-seeded Louis Caputo in the consolation semifinal and fell 12-1. Caputo was the only top-two seed in the entire meet not to make it to the finals. Thompson then came back to score a 5-1 win over fourth-seeded Casey Caldwell of Navy to secure fifth place. He now has a 22-14 record on the season.
The previous Bucknell record for most NCAA qualifiers was five, set in 1989 when Mark Faglioni, Jeff Scotton, Tom Marchetti, Rob Redfoot and Bryan Burns all made it. Bucknell’s six national qualifiers is tied for third most among the EIWA programs. Cornell will be sending nine wrestlers to NCAAs, followed by Lehigh with seven and Bucknell and Penn with six each. That breakdown is indicative of the finals standings at the 2009 EIWA Championships, as Cornell won the team title, with Lehigh second and Bucknell and Penn tied for third. Despite a roster containing only three classes of recruited student-athletes following the reinstatement of the program back to varsity status in 2006, Bucknell’s third-place finish was its best-ever in five seasons in the EIWA, and it was the program’s best finish in any conference meet since it won the ECWA title in 1995. A total of 278 wrestlers automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships through their conference and regional qualifying tournaments. An additional 52 at-large selections were made on Wednesday, bringing the total national field to 330. The EIWA received 11 of those wild card selections.
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