Three former area high school wrestling stars are now teammates on one of the nation’s best NCAA Division III wrestling programs.
Wisconsin-Whitewater currently is ranked No. 2 in the nation by intermatwrestle.com, trailing only Wartburg College from Iowa.
Whitewater recently won its fourth straight Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title and is 15-1 this season in dual meets.
The three area graduates on the Warhawks are 125-pound Nick Koch (2014 Grant grad), 174-pound George Gonzalez (2011 Antioch grad) and 197-pound Shane Siefert (2010 Carmel grad).
Koch qualified for the IHSA state finals last year at 113 pounds, and made it to state as a junior at 106 pounds. This season, he’s 6-7 in his matches for the Warhawks at 125. The freshman is majoring in business.
Gonzalez was a two-year state qualifier while at Antioch. He advanced downstate as a senior in 2011 at 145 pounds and qualified as a junior at 140. He’s majoring in criminology. This season, the junior is 6-6 on the mat at 174.
Siefert, a physical education major, has developed into a huge star. At Carmel, he qualified for state as a senior in 2010 at 160 pounds and also made state his junior year at 140.
But now, in his junior season at Whitewater, he’s 17-2 and is ranked No. 1 in the 197-pound weight class in Division III by intermatwrestle.com. His freshman year at Whitewater, he finished fourth in the Division III tournament. Last year, he made it all the way to the national finals before losing a 6-5 decision.
Next up for Whitewater’s wrestling team is the NCAA Midwest Region Championships on Feb. 28 at Wabash College. Top finishers at that event will advance to the national tournament on March 13-14 in Hersey, Pennsylvania.
Durbin is 0-2 at Northwestern
After winning the state wrestling title last year at 195 pounds as a senior at Lake Forest, Regis Durbin is redshirting in his first year with the Northwestern wrestling team.
He has been able to compete in two matches that were not part of NCAA-sanctioned competition and is 0-2 in those bouts.
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He will have four years of eligibility left beginning next season.