Missouri qualifies eight for NCAA wrestling nationals

Missouri qualified eight wrestlers for the NCAA championships, which begin March 20 in Oklahoma City.

Three Tigers drew top-16 seeds, led by junior Drake Houdashelt, who is the No. 1 overall seed at 149 pounds. Houdashelt, 34-1, finished sixth at nationals last season and is a three-time NCAA qualifier.

Freshman J’den Cox, 33-2, will be seeded second at 197, while fellow freshman Joey Lavallee, 27-9, earned the No. 14 seed at 157.

All three automatically qualified for nationals based on their performance at the Mid-America Conference championships last weekend in Kent, Ohio, where Missouri won its third straight conference championship — one in the Big 12 and now back-to-back MAC titles.

Four other Tigers — freshman Lavion Mayes (141, 23-11), senior Zach Toal (165, 26-5), junior Mikey England (174, 19-14) and junior Devin Mellon (285, 24-10) — also qualified automatically to the NCAA tournament.

England is a four-time national qualifier.

Freshman Matt Manley (133, 23-14) was an at-large selection for the national tourney field.

The only weight classes Missouri did not qualify in are 125 and 184.

This story was originally published March 12, 2014 at 7:43 PM with the headline "Missouri qualifies eight for NCAA wrestling nationals."