Wildcats Open 2016-17 Season at Home Sunday

11/5/2016 10:02:00 AM | Wrestling

NORTHWESTERN WRESTLING: MATCH INFORMATION
DATE	OPPONENT	TIME	LOCATION	BROADCAST	LIVE STATS
Sunday, Nov. 6	UChicago	4 p.m. CT	Welsh-Ryan Arena (Evanston, Ill.)	BTN Plus	TrackWrestling
Sunday, Nov. 6	North Central	5:30 p.m. CT	Welsh-Ryan Arena (Evanston, Ill.)	BTN Plus	TrackWrestling
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EVANSTON, Ill. – The 2016-17 season officially gets underway for Northwestern on Sunday with a tri-dual meet. The Wildcats welcome the University of Chicago and North Central College to Welsh-Ryan Arena to kick off the year.

Northwestern and Chicago will wrestle at 4 p.m. with the 'Cats and North Central scheduled to go at 5:30 p.m. The Maroons and Cardinals will follow that at 7 p.m. in a neutral match.

Both of Northwestern's matches will be streamed live on BTN Plus on BTN2Go. Live scoring will be available via TrackWrestling. Links can be found in the table at the top of the page.

YOUTH MOVEMENT
The Wildcats will be an extremely young team this year, boasting 16 underclassmen. The only upperclassmen on this year's team are seniors Jacob Berkowitz and Ben Sullivan and junior Mitch Sliga, all three of whom are expected to be in the starting lineup. Over half of the team (10 of 19) are freshmen this season, six redshirts and four true.

Four of those freshmen, redshirts Anthony Rubinetti (125), Jason Ipsarides (133) and Alec McKenna (141) and true freshman Shayne Oster (149) will start for Northwestern. The Wildcats will also trot out three sophomores in Bryce Brill (157), Johnny Sebastian (174) and Conan Jennings (285).

NEW ADDITIONS
Matt Storniolo was officially named the head coach on March 24, 2016, after serving as the interim coach last season. He was previously an assistant for the Wildcats for six seasons and was a two-time All-American wrestler during his own college career at Oklahoma.

Storniolo made two big impact hires this year with assistant Andrew Howe and volunteer assistant Cody Brewer. Both are former Sooner standouts as well. Howe wrestled for three years at Wisconsin, winning the 2010 national championship at 165 lbs. in addition to three Big Ten titles. He then wrestled his senior season for Oklahoma, achieving All-America honors for the fourth time. Brewer was a two-time Big 12 champion and 2015 national champion, in addition to being a four-time All-American. Assistant coach Conor Beebe rounds out the coaching staff with his own credentials as a four-time NCAA qualifier at Central Michigan. Beebe has been with the Wildcats since 2013.

BACK ON THE MAT
Northwestern welcomes back two wrestlers with big expectations who were forced to miss last season due to injury. Redshirt sophomore Johnny Sebastian was unable to compete at all in 2015-16, after compiling a 23-3 record while wrestling unattached in his redshirt season the year before. Sebastian was ranked the No. 1 wrestler in the nation in his weight class coming out of high school, where he won three New Jersey state championships.

Bryce Brill is coming off of a sophomore season that was cut short by injury after winning his first three matches. A three-time Illinois state champion, Brill went undefeated during both his junior and senior year in high school. He was also ranked as the top wrestler in the nation for his weight class, and was the No. 3 recruit overall in the Class of 2014.