Its that time of year again. The NCAA wrestling tournament is set to start Thursday in Albany, NY. Penn State will send seven wrestlers to the 2002 championships, one more than the past two seasons, looking to improve on last year's performance of no All-Americans and a 25th place team finish.

Seeds released

The NCAA released the top 12 seeds at each weight class yesterday. Minnesota's Leroy Vega at 125 and Ryan Lewis at 133 both grabbed top seeds for the Golden Gophers.

Other top seeded wrestlers are: Navy's Mark Conley at 141, Iowa's Mike Zadick at 149, Nebraska's Bryan Snyder at 157, Iowa State's Joe Heskett at 165, Michigan's Otto Olson at 174, Virginia Tech's Scott Justus at 184, Iowa State's Cael Sanderson at 197 and Ohio State's Tommy Rowlands at heavyweight.

The Nittany Lions only seeded wrestler is junior Doc Vecchio, who grabbed the No. 11 spot at 165 pounds. Iowa State's Sanderson, arguably the greatest college wrestler in history, earned his fourth straight top seed. Sanderson will be looking for his fourth straight national championship and Outstanding Wrestler award, in addition to ending his amazing career undefeated.

Injury update

The Nittany Lions returned from the Big Ten tournament in Illinois in fairly good shape.

Junior Mark Becks, who had to default out of the tournament at 184 with a knee injury after assuring NCAA qualification, is not 100 percent but is ready to go.

"Mark's knee is not 100 percent, similar to Big Ten's, but he's practiced well and can go hard," Penn State head coach Troy Sunderland.

Becks knows now is the time to shine.

"You don't think about it (an injury) when you're wrestling," Becks said.

"At this time of year, everyone has some kind of nagging pain. You just have to fight through it. This is the part of the season that people remember. At this point it's all or nothing"

Lion senior Pete Mielnik, who finished fifth at Big Ten's at 197, is also fighting through some pain in his ribs and elbow.

"Pete's been battling injuries for a long time," Sunderland said.

"But this is his last chance at nationals and he'll be ready for battle."

Also, 133-pound sophomore Marat Tomaev is, according to Sunderland, nearly recovered from a sickness that has been hampering his stamina for the past few weeks.

Workouts altered

During the opening stages of last year's tournament, Sunderland noticed his wrestlers falling behind early in matches, struggling to find their conditioning. Sunderland attributed this to taking the Tuesday prior to competition off, losing his wrestlers' conditioning edge.

"I felt we were well rested before nationals last year, but we missed a crucial day of hard workouts," Sunderland said. "Because of that, we would fall behind in the first period by six or seven points and the deficit would be too much to overcome."

This year, after going hard for the majority of last week, Sunderland eased up over the weekend, in preparation for a short, intense workout today. Also, in addition to regular full-team practice sessions, each qualifier has individual sessions with the coaches.

First round match-ups

The tournament's first round pairings were released yesterday evening. Tomaev will face Clarion's No. 12 seed Rad Martinez, who he lost to 8-1 in December. Sophomore Scott Moore drew Iowa State's Aaron Holker, the fifth seed at 141 pounds. Junior Nate Wachter will face unseeded Collin Robertson of Boise State at 149 pounds. Vecchio is paired with Chris Carlino of Cal-State Fullerton, an unseeded wrestler that Vecchio beat 5-4 earlier this season. Becks will face unseeded Isaac Weber of Oregon State, Mielnik drew No. 8 Jason Payne of Northern Iowa and sophomore heavyweight Pat Cummins will square off with unseeded Mike Carroll of Drexel.