Three Wildcats Gear Up for NAIA Men’s Wrestling National Championships

PARK CITY, Kan. – Baker men's wrestling will send three wrestlers – Brett Bober, Malachi Karibo and Dallas Koelzer – to the 2023-24 NAIA Men's Wrestling National Championships this upcoming weekend, held inside Hartman Arena in Park City, Kan. on Feb. 29 - March 2.

BU's trio of national qualifiers will all be making a return trip to the championships after appearing in last year's national tournament. It will be the fourth straight trip for Bober and Karibo, while Koelzer will mark his third consecutive NAIA appearance.

Bober, who holds a 15-8 record on the season, will wrestle in the 184-pound bracket in the No. 13 spot and face Rylin Burns (18-8) of Montana State-Northern in the first round. At last year's nationals, the Burlington, Kan. product earned a pair of pins and advanced to the third round of the consolation bracket.

After earning his third straight runner-up finish at the Heart Championships a couple of weeks ago, Karibo (12-2) looks to follow up a 2022-23 appearance that saw the hometown grappler (Wichita, Kan.) place fourth at 197 pounds in Park City. As the seventh seed, he will go up against Menlo's Hunter James (18-11) in the opening round.

Carrying a 13-7 record, Koelzer faces No. 13 Jonah Chew (27-5) of Embry-Riddle in his first bout of the 149-pound bracket. Coming off a fourth-place finish from this month's conference tournament, Koelzer looks to build on his outing from last year's national tournament where the senior from Olathe, Kan. earned his first set of NAIA wins.

With this year's tournament expanding to a three-day event, wrestling will begin at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 29 and run through Saturday night (March 2), culminating with the championship finals at 7 p.m.

You can watch a live stream of the Pre-Championship matches HERE (FloWrestling) and the Championship matches HERE (ESPN3), while live results can be found HERE. A link to the preliminary bracket can be found HERE.

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