Wartburg Knights trying to become first D-III wrestling team to win five consecutive championships

WAVERLY - The goal remains the same for No. 1 Wartburg at this weekend's NCAA Division III wrestling championships.

Only now, a new set of faces gets the opportunity to prove their worth.

The Knights will try to become the first D-III team to win five consecutive national championships and 12 overall when the tournament gets underway Friday morning and concludes Saturday night in Hershey, Pa.

Nine qualifiers give Wartburg the second most in the tournament behind Augsburg's 10. Seven of them have not wrestled at this stage before.

'It is a lot of different faces, but as the course of the year has gone on, they're not new faces anymore,” Wartburg head coach Eric Keller said. 'They've been tested. They've been through the highest level of battle.”

Waverly native Andrew Steiert leads the pack as the No. 1 seed at 165 pounds, where Cole Welter was one of three Knights - joining Kenny Anderson (133) and Landon Williams (174) - to win an individual national title in Cedar Rapids last season.

Steiert, a sophomore, is 16-3 this season and, like six of his teammates, is coming off a Central Region championship at the end of February.

'The biggest thing for me is I just want to go out and have fun, then good things happen,” Steiert said. 'I've worked hard all season, this is just the time to enjoy it.”

Connor Campo (133), Kenny Martin (149), Brandon Welter (174) and heavyweight Ben Nagle are all seeded fourth. Gerard Roman is No. 6 at 197 while Jake Agnitsch (125), Drew Wagenhoffer (157) and Devin Peterson (184) are seventh.

Only Wagenhoffer, an All-American three years ago, and Campo, who lost twice as a freshman last year, have nationals experience.

But the rest have waited their turns in a room full of All-Americans and NCAA champions. That program depth has shown, as Wartburg ascended from not being ranked in the preseason to a National Duals title in January.

'Obviously that early ranking put a chip on their shoulders and it drove them,” Keller said. 'From that point on, they kind of just made their minds up that we're gonna get as good as we can get.”

The inexperience on this team has proved to be more of a blessing than a detriment for Keller, who has won a national title every year since becoming co-head coach with Jim Miller in 2010-11. He took over the program last season.

'I don't know that I've ever had a group this eager, this willing to continually want more and to just learn and to grow,” Keller said. 'For them, they have something that they really, really want to prove. That's coming up this weekend. That's been their goal. Their sights have been set.”