Apodaca Dual Showdown Features Top Wrestlers at Northwest College in Powell, WY

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Don Tolin (Wyoming)
01/18/2002


CASPER - Northwest Community College Trappers will host some of the nation's top college wrestlers Friday and Saturday, January 18 and 19, at the Apodaca Dual Showdown in Powell, Wyoming. Among the competition for Jim Zeigler's number 5 ranked Trappers will be the number 1 ranked Neosho County Panthers of Chanute, Kansas with six Neosho County wrestlers ranked number 1 in the latest junior college poll.     Earlier this month at the Lonestar Duals in Grand Prairie, Texas, Neosho County Coach Terry Pack's Panthers went undefeated and knocked off top four year schools including Central Oklahoma, the #2 ranked team in NCAA Division II. Neosho County won the 2000 NJCAA wrestling team title and that same year Pack was named the NJCAA Coach of the Year. The Panther men's wrestling program is only in its fourth season.    Traveling back to her home state this weekend to help support her Neosho County men's wrestling team will be Sarah Tolin, a freshman transfer student from Casper College. Tolin is wrestling this year on the first women's college wrestling team for Neosho County Community College. In her first year of college wrestling, Tolin is currently ranked number 7 in the nation at 123 pounds among all U.S. college women wrestlers according to the latest rankings from TheMat.com and USA Wrestling.     Her Neosho County women's wrestling team is the only junior college varsity women's wrestling team in the United States and is ranked 6th among all colleges in the nation, with four wrestlers, including Tolin, ranked in the top 8 of their respective weight classes for all U.S. college women wrestlers. Tolin and her Lady Panthers will compete against the top women wrestlers at the Missouri Valley Women's International Tournament next weekend in Marshall, Missouri.    A native of Casper, Wyoming, Tolin serves on the Board of Directors of the Wyoming Amateur Wrestling Association as its Female Athlete Representative. Northwest Community College 149 pound standout, Loren Hutchins of Sheridan, Wyoming, is Tolin's counterpart on the WAWA Board as its Male Athlete Representative. WAWA is the governing body for amateur wrestling in Wyoming.     Both student athletes are in their second year of college. Tolin wrestled two seasons for the Kelly Walsh Trojans as the first girl allowed to compete on a boy's high school wrestling team in Wyoming and earned All-American honors by medaling at the Girls High School National Championships her senior year.  Hutchins wrestled for the Sheridan Broncs and was the 152 pound 4A State Champion his senior year. Hutchins, earned All-American honors  at Northwest Community College by finishing 8th at 149 pounds at last year's junior college national championships, and is currently #3 at 149 pounds in the latest junior college men's individual rankings.