Dec. 1, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

THIS WEEKEND
Fri. & Sat. Dec. 5-6 - at Las Vegas Invitational, All Day (Las Vegas Convention Center)

LAST COMPETITION
Sun., Nov. 23 - No. 10 NORTHWESTERN, W, 23-15

RECAP
The UC Davis wrestling team made history on Nov. 23 when they defeated then-No. 10 Northwestern, 23-15, at Pavilion... It marked the first victory over a top-10 ranked NCAA Division I team in program history... The Aggies first victory over a ranked D-I opponent came against No. 19 Oregon State at Pavilion in 2007.

Senior Dustin Noack and sophomore Ricky Alcala earned major decisions, and UC Davis added six more points with a forfeit at 157 pounds to upset the Wildcats in front of 944 fans... Noack scored a 9-0 shutout at 165 pounds to put UC Davis up by a score of 19-6 heading into the final four bouts... With a pin and a decision, the Wildcats closed to within four points going into Alcala's match... Alcala secured the Aggie win with an 11-3 major.

Sophomores Brandon Low (133) and Barrett Abel (149), and senior Tyler Bernacchi (174) all earned decisions on the night... Redshirt freshman Joey Wilson benefitted from a forfeit at 157 pounds to keep his collegiate record perfect at 3-0.

LAS VEGAS INVITATIONAL
UC Davis makes its yearly trip to Las Vegas, Nev. for the 27th Annual Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational this weekend... The two-day tournament will run Dec. 5 and 6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and features some of the best competition in the country.

A total of 48 teams will compete in the invitational... Along with UC Davis, six Pacific-10 schools will make the trip to the invite... Boise State is the lone Pac-10 team ranked in the top 25 and joins a total of nine nationally-ranked teams who will be in action... No. 3 Ohio State, No. 4 Cornell and No. 8 Illinois highlight that list... Four more competing schools are included in the others receiving votes category of the national rankings.

Last season the Aggies finished 20th at the invite... Bernacchi won five straight wrestleback matches to earn his first career place-finish at the Las Vegas Invite... He earned a 6-3 decision to open the second day and was forced to forfeit his next two matches en route to an 8th-place showing... Senior Marcos Orozco was the only other Aggie to qualify for the second day of the tournament and was just one win away from a place-finish.

HEAD COACH Lennie Zalesky
On Northwestern Upset: "It sends a message to the national wrestling community that we can compete against top-10 ranked teams. To our California wrestlers, it's great to see that we can compete on a national level. It's also great for our fans to come in and watch us compete with elite teams like Northwestern. I believe we still have our best days ahead of us. Our goal is to build a good wrestling community here and bring fans in to cheer us on and watch some good wrestling. The forfeit really helped us, but we had our chances to claim extra points at a couple matches. Even if they would have wrestled at 157 we still would have had a chance to beat them."

On Las Vegas Invite: "This is one of the biggest weekend's of the year. This is probably the toughest tournament in college wrestling right now. We'll go in there and see how tough we really are. If you can place in the top eight as a team you can earn a top 20 national ranking. It would be nice if we could earn a top 10 team finish. To do that we're going to have to place five guys. We've got a chance to do that. We stack up really well in five or six weights. Our best wrestlers will be looking to place."