Rutgers University announced on March 18 that its No. 11 ranked wrestling team will compete at the 2026 NCAA Wrestling Championships from March 19 to 21 at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.
The Scarlet Knights are among only eight programs nationwide to qualify nine or more starters for this year’s national tournament, marking the second-highest number of participants in a single year for Rutgers. The only time the program sent more was in 2016, when ten wrestlers competed at Madison Square Garden.
The lineup includes Ayden Smith (125 pounds), Dylan Shawver (133), Joseph Olivieri (141), Andrew Clark (149), Andrew Barbosa (165), Lenny Pinto (174), Shane Cartagena-Walsh (184), Remy Cotton (197), and Hunter Catka (heavyweight). Several athletes bring significant experience, with Shawver, Pinto, and Catka each making their fourth career appearance at the NCAA Championships. Olivieri and Clark are competing for the third time, while Cartagena-Walsh and Cotton return for their second consecutive season. Smith and Barbosa are making their first appearances after earning automatic bids at the Big Ten tournament earlier this month.
Head coach Scott Goodale leads Rutgers as it aims to secure multiple All-American honors for the ninth time in eleven seasons under his guidance. Thirteen individuals have earned a total of nineteen All-America awards during Goodale’s tenure, including Anthony Ashnault and Nick Suriano, who became the program’s first individual NCAA champions in 2019. The most recent All-Americans were Shawver and Yaraslau Slavikouski in 2024.
This year marks just the fourth time Rutgers has qualified eight or more wrestlers for nationals, joining previous years such as 2011, 2016, and 2024. The Scarlet Knights have also maintained a streak of qualifying five or more student-athletes for twelve consecutive seasons and have sent seven or more to nationals each year since the 2021-22 season.
Rutgers previously achieved one of its best postseason results when the championships were last held in Cleveland in 2018. That year, Nick Suriano finished as national runner-up at 125 pounds while Scott DelVecchio placed sixth at 133 pounds. With additional strong performances from John VanBrill and Richie Lewis reaching the “Blood Round,” Rutgers finished eleventh overall with forty-two-and-a-half team points—the second-best result in program history.