Undefeated freshman Hayden Hidlay enters NCAA tournament as No. 1 seed at 157

North Carolina State freshman phenom Hayden Hidlay has been named the No. 1 seed at next week’s NCAA Championships after putting together a flawless regular season and winning the ACC conference title at 157 pounds.

“I feel really good,” Hidlay said. “I know what I am going to go up against with some really good guys in my bracket, but I feel like where I am at right now, I am ready to fight through every match. I am going to do whatever it takes to win.”

Only NC State’s sixth-overall No. 1 seed, the Lewistown, Pa., native has been outstanding in his redshirt freshman campaign, going 22-0. Of those wins, seven were against ranked opponents, one of which includes then-No. 2 Joey Lavallee of Missouri in dramatic sudden-victory fashion.

Hidlay dominated the competition nearly every time he stepped on the mat, collecting 13 bonus-point victories, counting six major decisions, five technical falls and two pins. In all of his matches that didn’t end in a fall, the young Wolfpack wrestler outscored his opponents by an incredible 247-76.

“I think the biggest thing with Hayden is his mental approach to the sport,” NC State head coach Pat Popolizio said. “It’s shown a big difference in his wrestling this year. If you go back to his results from a year ago, he’s closed the gap quite a bit. He’s not just looking to win. He’s mentality has changed to wanting to dominate.”

Less than a week ago, Hidlay won his first ACC championship, taking out defending ACC champion Taleb Rahmani of Pitt in the conference semifinals, before beating out Duke’s Mitch Finesilver for the crown.

“I was able to see some tough competition even though I didn’t look 100 percent today,” Hidlay said after the ACC Championships. “I think it was a good lesson in preparation for the NCAA tournament. I was able to get to the finals and I wrestled pretty well there. I just didn’t have as much offense, but overall it was a pretty good day.”

Now he heads into the national tournament as the only undefeated freshman in the country and one of few undefeated wrestlers in the entire NCAA field.

“Right now, I am the only undefeated guy in the bracket,” Hidlay said. “I think that surprised a lot of people but I still feel like I have a lot to prove. I am ready to go to Cleveland and prove it.”

If seeds play out as they are predicted, Hidlay, who has already defeated seven of the wrestlers in the 157-pound bracket this season, will likely face either Pac-12 champion Josh Shields of Arizona State or Big Ten champion Alec Pantaleo of Michigan in the semifinals. Opposite of him in the bottom half of the bracket are college talents Michael Kemerer of Iowa, 2017 NCAA runner-up Lavallee and 2017 NCAA champion Jason Nolf of Penn State.

Knowing that he’s got a tough road ahead of him in the NCAA season finale, Hidlay is focused on staying loose and fresh.

“I don’t think I am going to get a whole better in the next two weeks,” he said. “I don’t think anybody is going to get a whole lot better in just the next two weeks of wrestling, so I just have to make sure that my head is in the right place and that I do the little things right.”