BOONE, N.C. — With five preseason all-conference selections among the 10 weight classes, App State Wrestling has been voted the preseason favorite to win the Southern Conference.
The preseason poll and all-conference selections came from voting by the league's nine head coaches, who were not allowed to vote for their own teams or student-athletes. The SoCon has expanded to nine teams this season with the addition of Bellarmine.
Under head coach JohnMark Bentley's direction, in the past six seasons, App State's 37-4 conference record ranks No. 5 nationally in all of Division I wrestling behind just Missouri, Oklahoma State, Cornell and Penn State.