PHILADELPHIA – Four Penn Wrestlers are set to compete at the 2018 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships March 15-17 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland as the Red and Blue look to close their season with podium finishes on the national stage.
 
Frank Mattiace, the No. 7 seed at 197 pounds, leads Penn's contingent and is joined by fellow senior co-captains May Bethea, Joe Heyob and Joe Velliquette.
 
2018 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships Schedule (All Times EST)
Session I – Thursday, March 15 at 12 p.m.
Session II – Thursday, March 15 at 7 p.m.
Session III – Friday, March 16 at 11 a.m.
Session IV – Friday, March 16 at 8 p.m.
Session V – Saturday, March 17 at 11 a.m.
Championship Finals – Saturday, March 17 at 8 p.m.
 
How To Watch:
All six sessions will be live streamed via the Watch ESPN App and ESPN3, showing every match on every mat. All six sessions will have television coverage as well on the ESPN family of networks.
Session I: ESPNU
Session II: ESPN
Session III: ESPNU
Session IV: ESPN
Session V: ESPNU
Session VI: ESPN2
 
The Quakers bring three returning NCAA qualifiers and one newcomer to the NCAA Championships this weekend. In addition, there's a guy who's both a returner and a newcomer in the form of head coach Roger Reina who is in year one of his second stint as head coach at his alma mater!
 
• Last year, all four of Penn's NCAA qualifiers won at least one match at the national tournament — the first time each Penn wrestler who competed had his hand raised at least once.
 
• Penn's three returning NCAA Qualifiers — May Bethea, Joe Heyob and Frank Mattiace — went a combined 6-6 last year at NCAAs.
 
• Bethea went 3-2 at 157 last season, finishing in the Round of 12.
 
• Unseeded for the third straight year, Bethea will look to win his first match for the third consecutive NCAA Championships.
 
Frank Thoughts
Frank Mattiace had an abrupt — and brutal — end to his first trip to the NCAA Championships last year when his consolation round match with Iowa's Cash Wilcke ended in a 4-3 loss for Mattiace in second sudden victory when Mattiace received his third caution of the match on a neutral restart. Mattiace returns this season with a 28-6 record — third-most wins of any 197-pounder in the field.
 
Mattiace, seeded No. 7, is 2-0 all-time against his first round opponent, Rocco Caywood of Army West Point.
 
Looming in Mattiace's quadrant is Cornell's No. 2 seed Ben Darmstadt. The all-time series between Mattiace and Darmstadt is tied at 2-2. Mattiace owns a pair of major decision victories, while Darmstadt has won the last two meetings —including in the EIWA title match two weeks ago.
 
One More Round For May Bethea
May Bethea is making his last trip to the NCAA Championships, and he's looking to advance at least one round further than he did in 2017 when he was a Round of 12 finisher — joining his older brother, Canaan, as Round of 12 finishers for the Quakers.
 
Bethea was drawn into a pigtail match, but if he can advance to the true first round, his opponent should be on the lookout. In his two previous NCAA Championships appearances, Bethea has defeated a seeded opponent in the first round both times — knocking off Oklahoma's No. 12 Clark Glass (3-2) in 2017 and Edinboro's No. 14 Auston Matthews (8-7) in 2016.
 
Not Your Average Joes
Penn has a pair of wrestlers named Joe entered in the field this week in Joe Heyob (184) and Joe Velliquette (157). Heyob went 1-2 last year, Velliquette is making his first career NCAA Championships appearance.
 
Heyob, an Ohio native who grew up in Cincinnati, ran into No. 5 seed Zach Zavatsky (Virginia Tech) and No. 6 Myles Martin (Ohio State) last year where he went 1-2. This year, he takes on No. 13 Steven Schneider of Binghamton in the first round. Heyob is 0-3 all-time against Schneider, the three losses by a combined four points — including a 2-1 loss at EIWAs where the deciding point was an illegal hold in the first period.
 
Velliquette — the first-ever qualifier to the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships from Nixa High School in Nixa, Mo. — earned an automatic bid with his fifth-place finish at EIWAs two weeks ago.
 
Velliquette is 15-14 overall, 14-12 at 157 pounds. 10 of his 12 losses at 157 have come to wrestlers in the field this week.