On Friday, the NWCA announced the full slate of 2021-2022 Scholar All-America Team and Individual honorees for Division I with awards going to 289 individuals representing 74 institutions.
2022 Division I Individual Scholar All-Americans
“On behalf of the NWCA Board of Directors, It is my honor to recognize these exceptional athletes and teams,” NWCA Executive Director Mike Moyer said. “Wrestling takes much focus and sacrifice and we are proud to honor these wrestlers for their obvious commitment to their academic pursuits!”
In the team race, Long Island University finished atop the field with a 3.626 GPA followed by Hofstra’s 3.575, and the Cleveland State’s 3.553.
For the individual awards, NC State and Wisconsin led the list of honorees with 8 Scholar All-American selections while Rutgers, Ohio St., Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan each had 7 award winners. In all, the Scholar list includes 188 National Qualifiers, 56 All-Americans, 13 National Finalists, and 6 National Champions.
The Bison also had six wrestlers honored as NWCA Scholar All-Americans. Junior 141 Dylan Droegemueller, freshman 149 Gaven Sax, junior 157 Jared Franek, senior 165 Luke Weber, sophomore 174 Riley Habisch and senior 285 Brandon Metz were among the 289 individuals honored.
Franek and Metz, both three-time recipients of the award, were two of NDSU’s five NCAA national championship qualifiers. Franek was the Big 12 runner-up at 157 pounds. Droegemueller, Sax, Weber and Habisch are all first-time recipients.
The list of individual NWCA Scholar All-America honorees for the Jackrabbits was led by repeat selections Clay Carlson and Cade DeVos, both of whom were NCAA qualifiers this past season. A third honoree, A.J. Nevills, also competed at nationals in March.
Rounding out the list of Jackrabbit award recipients were Daniel Kimball, Cade King and Kenny O’Neill.
TOP 30 SCHOLAR TEAM ALL-AMERICA
| Rank | Institution | GPA |
| 1 | Long Island University | 3.626 |
| 2 | Hofstra University | 3.575 |
| 3 | Cleveland State University | 3.553 |
| 4 | North Dakota State University | 3.542 |
| 5 | Campbell University | 3.484 |
| 6 | Utah Valley University | 3.472 |
| 7 | South Dakota State University | 3.465 |
| 8 | Stanford University | 3.457 |
| 9 | University of Northern Colorado | 3.454 |
| 10 | Franklin & Marshall College | 3.441 |
| 11 | Davidson | 3.428 |
| 12 | George Mason University | 3.428 |
| 13 | Central Michigan University | 3.427 |
| 14 | Brown University | 3.420 |
| 15 | American University | 3.419 |
| 16 | Sacred Heart University | 3.418 |
| 17 | Cornell University | 3.417 |
| 18 | Kent State | 3.415 |
| 19 | University of Northern Iowa | 3.406 |
| 20 | North Carolina State University | 3.402 |
| 21 | Drexel University | 3.393 |
| 22 | Harvard Universtiy | 3.379 |
| 23 | Ohio University | 3.378 |
| 24 | Purdue University | 3.367 |
| 25 | Duke University | 3.366 |
| 26 | Northwestern University | 3.343 |
| 27 | UA Little Rock | 3.338 |
| 28 | University of Michigan | 3.333 |
| 29 | Bucknell University | 3.330 |
| 30 | University of Pennsylvania | 3.329 |
