Virginia wrestling Steve Garland announced a group of 10 newcomers who will join his program for the 2020-2021 academic year.
The class includes four state champions, seven All-Americans and two national champions and seven state place-winners among its 10 members. The class also features three wrestlers ranked in the top 20 nationally in their weight classes and two ranked among the top 100 seniors regardless of weight class.
“Our staff is really happy with this group coming in,” said Virginia head coach Steve Garland. “This is an underrated group in our opinion. We have guys coming in this class that have won at the highest levels and we feel like most people have overlooked them. We trust they see that and we hope it motivates them. We have guys coming in from all over and we are excited to bring a diverse group of student-athletes to Grounds this fall.”
The class includes wrestlers from five states, including four from Virginia (Evan Buchanan, Loudon Hurt, Jessie Knight and Hudson Stewart), three from New York (Joe Contrastano, Josiah Encarnacion and Luca Errico), and one each from Illinois (Noah Villareal), New Jersey (Dylan Cedeno) and Pennsylvania (Patrick Noonan).
This past season, the Cavaliers had six wrestlers qualify for the NCAA Championships with two wrestlers selected as first-team All-America honorees in Jay Aiello and Jack Mueller. The squad had a pair of place-winners at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, including 125-pound champion Mueller, and a trio of place-winners at the Midlands Championship that included 197-pound runner-up Aiello. Virginia also had four wrestlers named to the ACC Wrestling All-Academic Team and three wrestlers named NWCA Scholar All-Americans.
Information from Virginia Athletics
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