Big 12 Champion Kenny Burleson will open Thursday's NCAA Championships against Matt Nagel of Minnesota.Big 12 Champion Kenny Burleson will open Thursday's NCAA Championships against Matt Nagel of Minnesota.
Wrestling

Missouri Wrestlers Selected as Top-10 Seeds Entering NCAA Championships

March 15, 2004

Four of five Missouri's NCAA qualifying wrestlers received top 10 seeding as posted by the NCAA on Monday. Senior captain Kenny Burleson (157) earned the highest seed of a Missouri wrestler selected at fifth. Redshirt freshman Ben Askren (174) had the second highest seed at sixth followed by senior captain Jeremy Spates (149) and redshirt freshman Matt Pell (184) in seventh. Only sophomore Jeff Foust (197) enters the Championships unseeded.

Burleson will open the 157-pound competition in a match against Matt Nagel of Minnesota. With a 31-4 record to his name, Burleson has managed two wins this season over the 24-15 sophomore. Meeting for the first time at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational on Dec. 5, Burleson took an 8-2 decision, followed with a 10-4 decision in the championship round of the Southern Scuffle on Dec. 29.

Sixth-seeded Askren will start the NCAA Championships on the opposite side of the bracket from number one seed Chris Pendleton of Oklahoma State. Askren opens his weight class with a bye, wrestling the champion of the 11th-seeded Matt Herringon (Pennsylvania) and Imad Kharbush (Stanford) match.

Wrestling at 149 pounds, Spates will pair with Deonte Penn of Edinboro for his first match on Thursday. Similar to fellow teammate Burleson, Spates has wrestled his opponent twice during the 2003-04 season. Meeting first at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, Spates took a 12-4 major decision, holding Penn to zero points in their second match at the Southern Scuffle on Dec. 29 (9-0).

In his first appearance at an NCAA Championship, Pell will head to the center circle with John Davis of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Wrestling in a three-way meet involving Missouri, UTC and Ohio State on Jan. 10, Pell scored his second technical fall of the season in the form of a 20-3 win over Davis.

Missouri native Foust, wrestling at 197 pounds, will take on the No. 4 seed Ryan Bader of Arizona State. Bader holds a 29-6 record, while Foust is 23-9 on the season. The two have never wrestled one another this season.

For a complete list of seeds please visit the NCAA website at www.ncaa.org.

The first round of matches will begin Thursday, March 18, at 11 a.m., in the Savvis Center of St. Louis.