Wrestling takes on No. 10 Michigan, Buffalo this weekend
After two Mid-American Conference wins against Old Dominion and Northern Illinois, the Central Michigan wrestling team will host Michigan on Thursday, February 2.
Michigan has a record of 7-4 in dual meets and ranks No. 10 per the NCAA Rankings.
On the other hand, Central Michigan has a dual meet record of 5-2 overall. CMU enters the meet ranked No. 17 in the NCAA Rankings.
"We will learn a lot when we wrestle Michigan," said head coach Tom Borrelli. "Those matches are good for you as far as figuring out what we need to work on."
CMU has six wrestlers ranked in the MAC individual rankings. They include Mason Smith, Justin Oliver, Colin Heffernan, C.J. Brucki, Jordan Ellingwood and Austin Severn.
"The Michigan match is a big match and its always a big match," said Borrelli. "If we can beat them in Tiddlywinks we are happy at Central Michigan."
CMU's 174-pound starter CJ Brucki will likely face Michigan's redshirt freshman Myles Amine in Thursday's match. Brucki improved his record to 22-5 last weekend and is coming up against Amine who has a record of 19-4 on the season so far.
In high school, Amine wrestled against CMU's Justin Oliver in the MHSAA Division 1 Wrestling State Final when Oliver's alma mater, Davison went up against Amine's school, Detroit Catholic Central.
CMU is 0-2 against ranked opponents this season. These losses are against No. 7 Missouri and No. 18 Northern Iowa.
The loss to Northern Iowa came after the referee had to go to fourth criteria to decide who won since the score was tied after the matches were played. Northern Iowa won because they scored more individual points than CMU did.
After the Michigan meet, CMU will face Buffalo Sunday at 2 p.m in Buffalo, New York.
The meet against the Bulls will be CMU's only MAC meet this weekend. Buffalo has a record of 2-2 in the conference. Buffalo's Bryan Lantry (133), Brett Perry (184), and Jake Gunning (HWT) are all ranked No. 4 in the MAC in their respective weight classes.
