CCCC wrestling team opens season ranked 11th in NJCAA

By Matt Kinney
CCCC SID
With the start of the 2021-22 wrestling season just three days away, the Cloud County Community College wrestling team has been ranked 11th in the preseason NJCAA wrestling poll.
Coming off their best finish at the NJCAA national championship meet in program history last April, the Thunderbirds received a total of 21 points to sit just one point back of 10th-place Iowa Central and five points back of ninth-place Iowa Western.
Cloud County is the third-highest ranked school among Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference schools as Pratt is ranked preseason number two with 72 points and Cowley is ranked preseason eighth with 42 total points.
The number 11 ranking is the highest in the program's five-year history as the ranking tops the previous high mark of 12th which was achieved on December 4, 2018, and again on February 8, 2019.
Returning 197-pound NJCAA National Champion Zach Ferris tops the list of wrestlers in his weight class as the Chapman, Kansas, native finished last year with a perfect 21-0 record, with last year's national runner-up Jose Valdez of North Iowa Area Community College coming in second.
Cloud County also has returner Cooper Mosier ranked sixth at 165 pounds as the second-year freshman will look to improve upon last year's 12-3 mark that saw his season come to an end just one win shy of being an NJCAA All-American.
The T-Birds will officially kick off the season this Saturday as the T-Birds will make the trek up to Rochester, Minn., to compete in the Rochester Community and Technical College Yellow Jacket Open. There are 21 teams expected to field wrestlers in the open-style meet with a mix of NCAA Division II, III, NAIA, and NJCAA schools coming together with matches slated to begin at 8 a.m.