KENT Kent State's wrestling coaches felt they had a solid recruiting class. The sport's most trusted website agrees.
InterMat, considered by many amateur wrestling enthusiasts to be the online Bible of the sport, recently announced its recruiting rankings for 2007. Kent State's recruiting class of 10 includes five All-Americans and was ranked 10th among all NCAA Division I programs. All 10 members of the class are from either Ohio or Pennsylvania two traditional wrestling hotbeds. It is the first national top ten class in Kent State wrestling history.
“You never know about recruits until about two or three years down the road, but it's nice to get the recognition,” head coach Jim Andrassy said. “We hope to continue building this program through consistent recruiting and make it a goal to get back-to-back top ten classes.”
The Golden Flashes were one of two Ohio teams to be ranked in the top ten. Ohio State earned the highest ranking of the 2007 classes under head coach Tom Ryan's first full class. Missouri coming off a school-best third-place team finish at the NCAA Championships in March pulled in the second-ranked class of 2007. Penn State rounded out the top three.
National Champion Minnesota re-loaded with talent as did Oklahoma State. Both of those schools boast top-ten classes for the second straight year as the Gophers are fifth and the Cowboys are sixth. Minnesota defeated Iowa State 98 to 88.5 at the NCAA tournament at the Palace of Auburn Hills in March. Iowa State's class was ranked 26th.
Kent State is the only Mid-American Conference school to have its recruiting class ranked in the top 20. Eastern Michigan was the only other MAC team to be ranked in the top 30. The Golden Flashes finished second in the conference in 2006-2007 to Central Michigan, whose class went unranked.
Eight of the ten members of Kent State's recruiting class have prep state tournament placement of third or better. Brian Dean (Division II 160 pounds, St. Vincent-St. Mary), Brendan Barlow (Division I 275 pounds, Westerville Central) and Dustin Kilgore (Division I -171 pounds, Berea) were all state champions either as juniors or seniors. Kyle Haddox (Canal Fulton Northwest) was a 2007 state runner-up, falling to Colt Sponseller - one of the top recruits in the nation - in a high-scoring 25-12 slugfest in the Ohio Division II 160-pound final.
Kent State has qualified five wrestlers to the NCAA finals in each of the past two seasons. Kurt Gross will return to the Flashes in 2007-2008 as a two-time NCAA qualifier. Heavyweight Jermail Porter and lightweight Danny Mitcheff both bring national experience and exposure back to the Flashes as well.
