NCAA championships are big, but this may be bigger.
This weekend, rising junior Micah Burak and Penn assistant Matt Valenti will be in Oklahoma City, Okla. to compete at the 2011 World Team Trials with a spot at the 2011 World Championships on the line.
Competing in the 96 kg weight class, Burak — who is ranked No. 10 in The Mat’s latest national ranking — is coming off a career year in which he finished second in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association and reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA championships.
“I’m excited and it’s a blessing to compete,” Burak said. “It should be fun and hopefully I’ll do well and be confident.”
Burak has been practicing at the Olympic Development facility located in his hometown of Colorado Springs. There, he has trained under the watchful eye of former Penn wrestling coach Zeke Jones and former Quakers wrestler and Olympic gold medalist Brandon Slay, focusing on adjusting from collegiate folkstyle to Olympic freestyle wrestling.
Freestyle wrestling differs from collegiate wrestling primarily in its scoring style. Points are assigned differently to different escapes, takedowns, throw, reversal and nearfalls.
“I’ve been wrestling freestlye so [the transition] is going pretty well,” Burak said, who finished the year 28-8. “This is another level. It’s just tougher than college, but I wouldn’t say it’s a lot tougher.”
Valenti, who was a two-time national champion during his collegiate wrestling career, is ranked No. 4 in the nation at 60 kg and qualified for the championships with a sixth place finish in the U.S. Open earlier this year.
Though he has been coaching at Penn for the last three years, he has continued training at the Lehigh Valley Athletic Club and has competed on the international stage.
He has previously won a bronze medal in the 2009 PanAm Games, finished sixth at the World Team Trials last May and won his first tournament at the Sunkist Open in Phoenix, Ariz., in October.
“I’ve done well internationally, but I haven’t been anywhere near where I need to be,” Valenti said earlier this year. “The best guys in the world are still a little step ahead of me, but fortunately I’m closing the gap.”
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