Despite an 8-8 regular season record and losing seven starters from the 2010 season, the Central Michigan wrestling team captured the 2011 Mid-American Conference championship Sunday in DeKalb, Ill.

CMU’s 79 points earned the team its 10th title in as many years, and 15th all-time, tying Ohio for the MAC record. Kent State finished second with 73.5, and Buffalo in third with 69.5 points.

“For us to win the championship we needed every single point of every single match throughout the whole weekend,” said head coach Tom Borrelli. “It was a total team victory.”

Sophomore Ben Bennett and junior Scotti Sentes each tallied their second MAC titles and junior Jarod Trice won his first, all three securing NCAA tournament bids with their victories.

Second place finishes by Scott Mattingly and Donnie Corby, on top of third place finishes by Christian Cullinan, Craig Kelliher and Mike Miller led the team to its victory. All three third place finishers lost true second place matches after falling short in the finals.

“I think we performed really well the last two days as a team,” Trice said. “Everything showed up today and in this MAC tournament.”

Sentes recorded his second major decision over KSU’s Tyler Small this season, beating him 9-1 for his second MAC title in three years. Sentes claimed the 125-pound title in 2009 as a true freshman.

Ohio’s Nick Purdue pinned Bennett during the teams’ dual meet this season, but the 174-pound championship match gave him a chance to avenge the loss.

“Scotti had an unbelievable tournament,” Borrelli said. “He had a tech fall, and a pin and a major in the finals. I don’t know if he could have wrestled any better.”

After a scoreless first, Purdue took a one-point lead into the third, where Bennett scored on an escape, a takedown and built on his riding time of almost three minutes en route to a 4-1 decision.

With two of CMU’s big three locking up top finishes, the spotlight fell onto Trice, as it has many times this season, and the heavyweight didn’t disappoint.

The Golden Flashes’ Brendan Barlow and Trice exchanged escapes in regulation, and again in the first tiebreaker after a stalemated first sudden victory. A second tiebreaker showed a change of suit when Barlow was unable to escape Trice, and Trice slipped away to win by a 3-2 decision.

“I knew how he was going to wrestle me,” Trice said. “I knew he was going to try to hold my pace down and I knew I had to control the match and our results turned out pretty well.”

Miller came into the day attempting to be just the 10th Chippewa wrestler to win three MAC tournament titles. His effort fell short when UB’s John-Martin Cannon upset him by a 6-5 decision in the 165-pound finals.

“Milller lost a real tough match in the finals - winning up until the last 30 seconds, and then to try and come back to wrestle for a true second right after that," Borrelli said. "That’s pretty tough to ask of anyone.”

Sentes, Bennett and Trice will have a week to prepare before advancing to the NCAA Tournament in Philadelphia, Pa., March 17-19. Buffalo will send a MAC-best four wrestlers to the big stage, while Kent State will send two.

“They’ve been our three hourses all year, and we’ve depended on them to come through all year and that’s what they did today,” Borrelli said.