Former Ankeny standout Trever Anderson has qualified for the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships.
A redshirt sophomore at Northern Iowa, Anderson automatically qualified with a seventh-place finish at 125 pounds in the Big 12 Championships last weekend at Tulsa, Okla.
After splitting his first four matches in the tournament, Anderson was locked in a tight battle with Tanner Jordan of South Dakota State in the battle for seventh place. The duo entered the third period tied at 1-1 before Anderson caught Jordan and turned him for a pin with 2 seconds left on the clock.
Anderson, who is ranked 26th in the country by the NCAA coaches, was one of nine NCAA qualifiers for Northern Iowa–the most ever under coach Doug Schwab. The Panthers captured three individual titles and placed second overall in their most dominant performance at the Big 12 Championships in program history.
The team race came down to the final match of the tournament as Oklahoma State narrowly edged out UNI by four points for the crown. The runner-up finish ties the Panthers’ best-ever finish at the Big 12 Championships, matching their second-place finish in 2018–UNI’s first year as an affiliate member of the league.
Anderson opened the tournament with an 8-1 decision over Tucker Owens of Air Force. He then dropped a 5-1 decision to Stevo Poulin of Northern Colorado.
After posting an 11-3 major decision over Kysen Terukina of Iowa State, Anderson then fell to Antonio Lorenzo of Oklahoma, 4-0. That loss sent him into the seventh-place match against Jordan for a trip to the NCAA Championships.
At-large selections for the NCAA Championships will be announced on Tuesday, with tournament seeds and brackets set to be released on Wednesday. This year’s NCAA Championships will be held March 20-22 at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pa.