47th Annual Midlands Championships

The 2009 Midlands Championships at Northwestern's Welsh-Ryan Arena marks the 47th time the event has been held. It showcases some of wrestling's best talent. It's certainly one of the most prestigious events on college wrestling's calendar.

The wrestlers are starting to take the mat to warm up with the opening session being about 45 minutes away from the start. Welsh-Ryan isn't a big venue and is very modest compared to many Big Ten venues, I'm sure. Let's see how it is when wrestling starts, because it could make for a very intimate and exciting atmisphere, depending on the crowd of course.

Just received brackets. The bracket breaks down well for Matt McDonough, seeded third at 125. Northwestern's Precin is #1 with Va. Tech's Jarrod Garnett, holding the second seed.

At 133, ISU's Nick Fanthorpe is the #1 seed and Iowa's Nate Moore is unseeded. Dan Dennis is not wrestling for the Hawkeyes. Moore will get an early test. If he wins his first match he likely will see Scotti Sentes of Central Michigan.

Iowa's Dan LeClere is the second seed at 141. Joe Slaton is fourth and Montell Marion is ninth. Top-seeded Jimmy Kennedy (unattached-Illinois) will have his hands full with possible matches with Marion and Slaton.

The most interesting first round match is at Hwt. Third-seed David Zabriskie of Iowa State faces Iowa's Blake Rasing. The two battled to an overtime match on Dec. 6 in Iowa's 18-16 at Ames. Zabriskie scored a takedown in OT to win it, but Rasing had multiple chances to score. Nice one right out of the gate.

UNI's Christian Brantley is the 10th seed at Hwt. He opens with Bubba Owens of Oregon State, coached by former Iowa national champion and coach Jimmy Zalesky, who has made the rounds talking to a few Hawkeye fans.