BY CHANCE WEEKS-WILLIAMS, Staff Reporter

Last Saturday, Central Washington University hosted the Northwest Conference regional wrestling tournament and finished second out of the nine schools.

Head coach Eric Idler wasn’t completely satisfied with his team’s performance; he said that they could have won the conference.

“Overall we did well, a few individuals did exceptionally well,” Idler said. “My expectations are to improve on last year’s performance at nationals.”

Central had three wrestlers take first place: Andrew Vulliet at the 125-pound weight class, Nick Bendon at 157 pounds, and Kevin Madson at 285 pounds. That gave them automatic bids to the national tournament.

Bendon said it “puts me in a really good seed going into nationals, and four more wins to my postseason career. My finals match was exceptional because I beat a kid who had beaten me at the first tournament of the year. The rematch was highly anticipated and I rose to the occasion.”

Sophomore Andrew Vulliet pinned his way through the finals, including a two-minute pin in the first round.

“It felt awesome. It’s pretty cool to be one of two consecutive regional champions on our team,” Vulliet said.

Central also had two second-place finishes by Andrew Huerta in the 184-pound weight class, and Steven Alfi, who wrestled in the 165-pound division.

“I am very disappointed with the way I wrestled in the finals,” Alfi said. “Just barely lost; I couldn’t quite pull it out. I’m glad because it keeps me motivated and humble. I’m getting geared up for nationals, looking for improvement as an individual and as a team.”

There was also a peculiar finish that made another Wildcat eligible for the tournament. Chris McElroy finished in third place for his weight class (174). However, there was an injury to the second place finisher. Brandon Todd re-aggravated an injury he sustained earlier in the season. This automatically put McElroy in the tournament.

“It’s an awesome  opportunity for a true freshman to get some national competition,” Bendon said. “This will be a good experience for some of the younger CWU wrestlers.”

In addition to the six wrestlers who finished in the top two for their weight class, Central was given two wild card bids (Matt Yuste and Zack McCarley).

Each conference is given a certain number of wild card bids, which are then voted on amongst all the coaches from the conference. The remaining bids were given to Jake Crawford from Western Washington University and Christian Sartin from the Evergreen State College.

“It’s great to see that our numbers are growing and we qualified more people this year than last,” Afli said. “I was let down by the number. However, I thought we could have performed better as a whole, myself included. That’s how postseason goes- everyone starts to peak at this time of the year.”

Central finished just three points shy of Washington State University. Eight of Central Washington’s wrestlers will move on to the national tournament next Thursday in Allen, Texas.