NCAA Wrestling Graphic 2026 Ty Daugherty Thomas Lunt

NCAA Championships Preview: Men's Wrestling Sending 2 to Iowa

3/11/2026 3:57:00 PM | By: Joe Ginley '16, SID

Ty Daugherty and Thomas Lunt are ready to represent JCU on the mats

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – A historic first NCAA Wrestling Regional at John Carroll ended with a bang, as Thomas Lunt qualified for the NCAA Division III Championships with a dramatic third-place victory at 285 pounds in one of the last matches in the meet.

The following week did not lack for the dramatic, either, as in a rare circumstance due to injury, Ty Daugherty got the ticket to the big show.

Thomas Lunt (285 pounds) and Ty Daugherty (133 pounds) are both now ready to roll for the National Championships at Alliant Energy Powerhouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Friday at 10 am. JCU's two qualifiers is an improvement over one qualifier a year ago.

"Anytime you improve in any area from the previous year is great, so to have two qualifiers is a good thing for our program," said Mark Hawald '05. "The easy matches are long gone now, everything is a fight in the national tournament. So if you want to win those matches you have to be ready for a fight."

Both Lunt and Daugherty are certainly battle-tested and ready for war on the mats.

Lunt enters the 285-pound bracket with a 25-11 record. The Connecticut native most certainly experienced some ups and downs over the course of the season.

The senior wrestled for third place at the Albion Invitational and Tom Jarman Mat Classic before settling for fourth, and lost the fifth-place match at the Pete Willson Invitational. But there were also several hints of greatness, including a second-place finish at the prestigious RIT Invitational on December 6.

The preparation set him in great position for the NCAA Region V Championships. All five of his wins were by decision or in extra time, including two triumphs in sudden victory. And nothing could top his dramatic takedown in the third-place match that sent him to the National Championships.

"It was definitely a very high moment after winning the match and placing third in the tournament," said Lunt. "Having a break was a nice thing to be able to re-center and get back into practice. Now, you just try to keep the routine, don't change anything too much, and don't make the tournament any bigger than it is."

Lunt has become the king of winning close matches this season. Of his 25 wins, five have been decided in extra time. For the veteran, it all comes down to the right mental preparation.

"A big thing I do is visualizing the tournament. It's usually at night right before I go to bed, I try to imagine what each match and the overall tournament is going to look like and I run through all different scenarios," said Lunt. "With the regional tournament, the obvious goal is to win it, but I also visualized that if I lost, I knew I can't lose two. It definitely helps that I've already visualized it in my mind so I can go ahead with what I need to do."

Lunt's mature approach is the result of consistent growth over his four years, which has not gone unnoticed by his coach.

"Thomas was a back up as a freshman and as a sophomore was figuring things out. As a junior, he was starting to have some moments of jumping to the next level and he had a shot to qualify last year. To watch that growth is awesome," said Hawald. "Typically that's not just a wrestling thing, that's usually personal development, maturity, work ethic, discipline, and sacrifice. The results are a sign of growth. So to see a guy who is not at the regional tournament as a freshman, can't place as a sophomore, and qualifying for Nationals as a senior is pretty outstanding."

Ty Daugherty's progression has also been an upward curve. The Avon native transferred in for his sophomore season with ample talent, but needed to develop consistency.

The major part about Daugherty's journey has been finding his spot. The senior has bounced between weight classes during his JCU journey. He finished 21-21 as a sophomore at 133, then started at 133 as a junior before bumping up to 141 later in the season. But both times, his regional tournament ended with a 1-2 record.

Daugherty began the 2025-26 campaign at 141 pounds. But he began his senior season with a 3-7 record through December, so the decision was made to pop back down to 133.

"Each time we moved him up or down, we thought it was the right decision," said Hawald. "It ended up being the right choice, as he really came on strong at 133, which was really exciting to see."

Daugherty's first match at 133 occurred on January 17 at the Spartan Mat Classic, and resulted in a loss. But Daugherty bounced back with five wins to grab fifth in the tournament and even out at 8-8. The good results kept coming, with a third-place finish at the Jamestown Jayhawk Open and then three straight dual wins over foes from RIT, Mount Union, and Baldwin Wallace to finish out the regular season. Daugherty went into the postseason with a 17-11 record.

"There's a lot of trust in that journey [of moving through weight classes], trusting my coaches, trusting myself, trusting the process," said Daugherty. "I had to push results to the side for a little bit of time, especially at the beginning of the season. I had to focus on my individual self and what I can do to get better.

"It takes a lot of strength training to stay at 141. I was on the weights and doing everything to try to fill out. But at the end of the day if my body can't fill out to that weight, that's where we made the decision to go down. I was always pretty comfortable with being down in weight and had experience in losing weight before. This time when I went down, I really felt like it helped me stay conditioned."

Daugherty roared to start the Region V Championships, winning his first two matches decisively to get into the semifinal. A loss to the eventual champ dropped him to the consolations. The senior won by tech fall to get to the third-place bout, but with a ticket to Nationals on the line, Case Western Reserve's Art Martinez snuck by him for a takedown in sudden victory.

But after the devastating loss, hope emerged. An unfortunate injury to the second-placer from North Central opened up a spot for Daugherty.

"I told Ty the circumstances that led to him qualifying did not take away from the significance of competing at the national tournament. He earned the opportunity to compete because of everything he had done up to that point," said Hawald. "He fought in a lot of really close matches. He positioned himself to get a seed by winning matches at tournaments and by winning matches at duals. It's exciting to see a guy understand that every match counts from the beginning of the season to the end."

The preparation in case his number was called has him ready for this weekend.

"I wrestled the regional tournament like I did not want my career to be over," said Daugherty. "I was going to treat the next week like I did not want my career to be over. I hit every rep with intent and came in with a really great mindset everyday."

And now with the end in sight, sticking to what works for you is critical.

"It's the same as every other tournament, you don't want to change anything or get out of routine," said Daugherty. "I'm a routine guy, so I get to bring Brett Stanley and he's going to be my warmup partner like always. I'm going to watch a movie the night before like always and mentally relax. Everyone is quite equal physically and knowing that you belong. Everybody has beat somebody and everybody has lost to someone they shouldn't have. It's some elite competition at the level that we're gonna see but I don't think it's out of our reach. We're there for a reason."

"I'm just excited that I get to go with Ty and great coaches who have helped me out," said Lunt.

Daugherty will open 133 vs. NYU's Jacob Venezia (29-6) for the right to face the #4 seed, Luther's Connor Kidd (29-3).

Lunt will open 285 vs. Ithaca's Kamdyn Dorchester (32-10) for the right to face the #1 seed, Wartburg's Mitch Williamson (29-0).
Whatever the outcome, Lunt and Daugherty are ready to join the John Carroll Alumni community and represent the school well beyond Iowa.

"It's a great honor to keep the legacy going at heavyweight and John Carroll Wrestling in general," said Lunt. "John Carroll has great alumni not only athlete-wise but successful people in general. I'm hopefully going to do my best to keep the mission going, and not only be a great athlete but have a great career afterwards."

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