Friday Night Dual - On Paper

Tonight is potentially the biggest dual of the year so far. We've got D2 #1 Lowell vs D3 #1 Dundee. In the Fab 50, it's #1 Dundee vs #2 Lowell. Nationally, it's #26 Dundee vs #38 Lowell. Dundee has won 7 straight D3 state championships, while Lowell is going for their 12th straight this year in D2. Tonight, one of them will be crowned the #1 overall team in the state for the 2024-25 season.

We have ranked matches at pretty much every weight. Dundee has 19 wrestlers ranked in the top 16, while Lowell has 17 ranked wrestlers in D2. Both teams will have plenty of firepower that we don't even see in this dual. While both teams have plenty of flexibility to bump around and find matchups, making it difficult to predict who will wrestle whom in some cases, we do our best to anticipate what big matches will happen.

Potential Lineups:

Outlook: Some of the moves Lowell used to knock off D1 #1 Detroit Catholic Central last week will probably not be used tonight. For example, #1 Jarrett Smith will likely stay home at 113 tonight to wrestle #1 Katschor. Dundee, however, could make a few moves. If Burns or Redmon will likely stay at 138 to wrestle Foss, while the other bumps up to wrestle Dawson/Boone. We could see Amrhein stay at 157 to wrestle Harvey while #1 Beaufait bumps up to 165 to wrestle #1 Segorski in what would create the match of the dual. Dundee also has the flexibility to get #1 Katschor up to #1 Engle at 190 if the Vikings need to start chasing wins.

This dual could come down to the matches where we don't have #1 ranked wrestlers. At 106, McKay and Kohlman have not yet wrestled each other, but McKay did win GGI in December while Kohlman took 3rd. At 215 and 285, Lowell has guys ranked outside the top 8, and Dundee has guys sitting just outside the rankings. Those three matches (106, 215, 285) all favor Lowell, and they could give Lowell the advantage tonight.

Lowell will be favored down low and up top, while Dundee should be the favorites through a lot of the middle weights.

Prediction: Lowell +3