Wrestling Opens Season at Hokie Open Sunday

DURHAM, N.C.—After over full fall of grueling training, the Duke wrestling team will get the chance to see some new faces when it opens the season at the annual Hokie Open. The Blue Devils will have nine competitors and Duke singlets and 20 overall competing on the day.

The event will be held at Rector Field House with opening matches beginning at 10 a.m. Doors will open at 9 a.m. and admission is $15 for all age groups. Tickets can be purchased in advance and printed off at home, or bought at the door, but only cash will be accepted at the door. The link to purchase tickets in advance can be found here.

The action will kick off at 10 a.m. and run throughout the day. There are two tournaments this year, the open tournament and Freshman/Sophomore tournament, which will be run separately, but at the same time. There will be no live results/brackets for the event, but @VT_Wrestling will have occasional tweets as the event rolls along.

Headlining the Blue Devils wearing Duke singlets are redshirt seniors Immanuel Kerr-Brown and Marcus Cain at 157 and 149. Kerr-Brown earned the No. 3 overall seed behind Virginia's Chris Moon and Austin Trott of Gardner-Webb, while Cain is slotted fifth in the 149-pound bracket. Cain returns to 149 pounds this season after competing at 165 a year ago and Kerr-Brown looks to build on his NCAA qualifying junior campaign.

Wrestling for the first time in a Duke uniform will be redshirt freshmen Tyler Patrick, Joey Abbate, Alex Belaia-Martiniouk and Spencer Neff. Evan Botwin, Brian Dorsey and Jacob Kasper also will don the Duke blue in the opening event of the season.

Competing unattached and earning the top seed at 197 pounds is redshirt junior Conner Hartmann. The Port Orchard, Wash., native returns following his breakout All-American season a year ago. He will wrestle unattached until December and will make his debut in a Duke singlet at the Grapple at the Garden.

Overall, eight freshmen will get their first taste of collegiate wrestling, competing unattached. Logan Day, Mitch Finesilver, Zach Finesilver, Alec Schenk, Thayer Atkins, Bailey Jack, Grant Leeth, Luke Farinaro all will hit the mats for the first times in their rookie careers.

Duke University

Brian Dorsey - 174

Tyler Patrick - 184

Joey Abbate - 149

Alex Belaia- Martinouk - 184

Spencer Neff – 197/HWT

Evan Botwin - 141

Jacob Kasper - 184

Marcus Cain – 149

Immanuel Kerr-Brown - 157

Duke Unattached

Logan Day - 157