Augustana Vikings

Seven Home Matches Highlight 2020-21 Augustana Schedule

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – A seven-match home wrestling schedule and 14 regular season dates are part of the 2020-21 Augustana wrestling schedule announced Thursday.

The Vikings, coming off a second-place finish in the 2019-20 NSIC standings, open their season with a pair of open tournaments with the Jimmie Open (Nov. 7) and DWU Open (Nov. 14).

The home debut of the 2020-21 squad has Augustana hosting North Dakota State on Nov. 20 inside the Elmen Center, a facility that saw the Vikings go 6-1 in last season. Augustana makes it back-to-back matches with Division I foes, and members of the Big XII, as the Navy and Gold travel just up I29 to South Dakota State on Nov. 11.

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Kelvington Awarded NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship

INDIANAPOLIS – Augustana wrestler Ben Kelvington has been awarded the prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship the NCAA recently announced.

The NCAA awards up to 126 postgraduate scholarships annually to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically and who are at least in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition. The one-time $10,000 award is given three times a year, corresponding to each sport season (fall, winter and spring).

Kelvington, the NCAA Elite 90 winner and NSIC Elite 18 winner for holding the highest GPA at each championship event, was nominated by Dr. Marcia Entwistle, the Augustana faculty athletics representative (FAR).

“Ben exemplifies what it means to be an Augustana student-athlete,” Dr. Entwistle said. “Ben is a gifted athlete, talented scientific researcher, and impactful leader.”

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Kelvington and Burnett Earn NWCA All-America Honors

MANHEIM, Pa. – The National Wrestling Coaches Association has announced the 2020 Division II All-America teams highlighted by Augustana’s Ben Kelvington and Hunter Burnett. This year’s selections were based on each wrestler’s overall body of work through the Super Regional Tournaments and up to the national championships, which were canceled due to COVID-19.

“With the cancellation of the national tournament the NWCA Division II leadership group thought it was still very appropriate to name All-Americans this year,” Jason Warthan, NWCA Division II President said. “The leadership group did a great job of weighing different options and polling the membership. We are happy that we can make the most out of an incredibly unfortunate situation.

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NWCA Division II Coaches Group Announces 2020 All-America Teams

Manheim, PA – The National Wrestling Coaches Association has announced the 2020 Division II All-American teams. Each year the NWCA recognizes the outstanding work of the DII Student-athletes by naming the All-Americans based on their achievements in the national championship, however, this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic the championships were canceled.

All-American honors were based on each wrestler’s overall body of work through the super-regional tournaments and up to the national championships.

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Augustana Wrestling Tabbed Fifth in NWCA Scholar All-America Rankings

MANHEIM, Penn. — The awards keep rolling in for the Augustana wrestling team after a fantastic 2019-20 campaign that featured a second-place finish in the NSIC standings and saw three wrestlers qualify for nationals. This time, the Vikings are being honored in the classroom, with the fifth-best team GPA in the country (3.336) which earned the Vikings NWCA Division II Scholar All-America honors the NWCA announced Monday afternoon.

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Jordan’s Kelvington battled his entire career

Augustana senior wrestler Ben Kelvington wanted to end his career at the Premier Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

He was able to do that, just not in the way he dreamed of.

The NCAA Division II wrestling national championships were ready to start last week and Kelvington, who attends Augustana University, was set to compete for a national championship at 174 pounds.

But the NCAA canceled all winter national championships due to concerns over the novel coronavirus.

Kelvington’s wrestling career was over. Continue reading at swnewsmedia.com

NCAA announces the 2020 NCAA wrestling award winners

INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA has released the winners and final standings for the 2020 NCAA wrestling awards in Divisions I, II and III.

The three awards, given in each division, honor the Most Dominant Wrestler as well as the student-athletes who have accumulated the most falls and the most technical falls throughout the course of the regular season, conference tournaments and NCAA super regionals.

Leading the way as the Most Dominant Wrestler in each division are Spencer Lee of Iowa in Division I, Jared Campbell of Notre Dame (Ohio) in Division II and Troy Stanich of Stevens in Division III.

The award for most falls went to Jacob Schwarm of the University of Northern Iowa with 16 in Division I, Hayden Bronne of Tiffin in Division II with 20 and Marvin Cunningham of Johnson & Wales University (Providence) with 24.

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2019-20 NSIC Winter All-Academic Teams Announced

BURNSVILLE, Minn. — The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference announced that 50 wrestlers have earned NSIC All-Academic honors for the 2019-20 winter athletic season; 22 wrestlers were named to the NSIC All-Academic Team of Excellence, while 28 earned NSIC All-Academic Team honors.

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