MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – No. 4 Zeke Moisey of the West Virginia University wrestling team will face No. 1 Nathan Tomasello of Ohio State in a rematch of last season’s 125 pound NCAA championship finals at the 50th Annual Hire Heroes NWCA All-Star Classic, presented by the Wrestlers in Business Network on November 1 in Atlanta, Georgia. The event is slated for a 5 p.m. start at McCamish Pavilion on the campus of Georgia Tech and will be broadcast live on ESPNU.

 

“It is an honor for Zeke to represent WVU and our wrestling program in the showcase event at the All-Star Classic,” said coach Sammie Henson, who wrestled in the 1994 NWCA All-Star Classic while competing for Clemson. “We look to have a great year up and down our lineup. Zeke has an opportunity to kick things off with a bang for us.”

 

The 2015 NCAA runner-up, Moisey (31-14) shed his redshirt three weeks into the season and went on to take second at the Big 12 Championship in Ames, Iowa, in March. He earned an at-large bid to the NCAA championships, where he upset four seeded opponents, pinning No. 6 Thomas Gilman of Iowa in the semifinals and advancing to face Tomasello, the No. 4 seed in the tournament. Moisey became the first unseeded wrestler to compete in the NCAA finals since 2003 and the first WVU wrestler to do so since Greg Jones won a national title in 2005.

 

Tomasello took a 9-5 decision from Moisey in the NCAA finals in St. Louis last season. It marked the third meeting of the year between the two. Moisey and Tomasello first met in the opening weekend of the season at the Michigan State Open, with then-No. 11 Tomasello winning a 19-6 major decision over Moisey, who competed unattached as a redshirt at the event. The two squared off again at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational in December, as then-No. 9 Tomasello won a 15-10 decision. It marked the lone loss for Moisey, who went on to take eighth place at the tournament.

 

Moisey is the 30th All-American in WVU wrestling history, and was the first Mountaineer to earn the honor since Brandon Rader in 2007.

 

The Mountaineers open the 2015-16 season on Sunday, Nov. 8 at the WVU Coliseum as they host Drexel, Campbell and Arizona State as part of the Mountaineer Quad.