Nebraska redshirt freshman and 197-pound starter Eric Schultz received an at-large bid to the 2018 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships on Tuesday.
The Huskers now have seven wrestlers qualified for the national tournament in Cleveland on March 15-17. Five of those seven qualifiers are underclassmen.
Six Nebraska wrestlers received automatic bids with their individual placement at the Big Ten Wrestling Championships this past weekend in East Lansing, Michigan.
Joining Schultz is senior Colton McCrystal (149), junior Tyler Berger (157), sophomore Isaiah White (165), fellow redshirt freshmen Chad Red Jr. (141) and Taylor Venz (184), as well as true freshman Jason Renteria (133).
Schultz, who finished in seventh place at the conference tournament, came up one win shy of an automatic bid. The Big Ten Conference was allocated six automatic spots at 197 pounds.
The Tinley Park, Illinois, native holds an 18-9 record this season, with five of those loses coming against opponents ranked inside the top 10 of the InterMat 197-pound rankings.
Schultz’ most impressive win the season came against then-No.11 Kevin Beazley of Michigan by decision 8-6. Beazley
Earlier this season at the Cliff Keen Invitational, Schultz nearly upset top-ranked Kollin Moore of Ohio State, losing by decision 3-2. Moore was an All-American in 2017 and recently claimed his second consecutive Big Ten Championship.
This is the second-straight year Nebraska has seven qualifiers for the national tournament and seventh-straight with more than five.
The weight-by-weight brackets for the NCAA Championships will be released Wednesday at 5 p.m. CT.
