Full list of 2021 NCAA Qualifiers
STANFORD, Calif. - Fifth-year senior Requir van der Merwe and redshirt sophomore Real Woods have received at-large berths into the NCAA Championships, the association announced Tuesday.
Stanford now has seven wrestlers qualified for the NCAA Championships, being held March 18-20, in St. Louis, Missouri. The seven NCAA qualifiers are the Cardinal's second-most in program history. Joining van der Merwe and Woods are Stanford's automatic qualifiers Jackson DiSario (125), Jaden Abas (149), Shane Griffith (165), Nick Stemmet (197) and Nathan Traxler (285).
van der Merwe is 7-3 on the season and placed third at the conference tournament. He has a pair of wins over ranked opponents and was named the Pac-12 Wrestler of the Week on Feb. 3. The two-time team captain carries a 50-20 career record heading into his second national tournament.
Woods, who made his season debut at the Pac-12 Championships on Feb. 28, was the conference runner-up at 141 pounds. After picking up a tech fall and a fall over Jose Landin of CSU Bakersfield on March 6, he is now 4-1 on the season and 23-2 in his collegiate career. The 2020 Pac-12 champion earned the No. 3 seed at last season's NCAA Championships before the event was canceled.
The NCAA will release the 2021 championship seeds and brackets on Wednesday at 3 p.m. PT on ncaa.com.