Bartlesville, Okla. - The Friends University Men's wrestling Falcons captured the program's first-ever KCAC team championship on Saturday (Feb. 21) on the campus of Oklahoma Wesleyan University in Bartlesville, Okla. In the team scores, Friends took first place, while individually the Falcons had eight individuals qualify for the national tournament and produced four wrestlers at the top of their weight classes. The Falcons also earned the prestigious KCAC Men's Wrestling Team of Character and Champions of Character award.
Wyatt Gardner (141),
Brady Duling (149),
Benedict Holthaus (174), and
Jason Bowers (184) were all KCAC champions at their weights. Friends would also have multiple other placers which awarded them bids to the national tournament.
Below are the Falcon wrestlers that qualified for the NAIA National Tournament:
Senior
Jason Bowers was awarded 2026 KCAC outstanding wrestler, showing dominance on the mat leading a young Falcons squad.
This is a school record for national qualifiers,
Tyler Mies in just his third season at Friends has completely turned this program around. Mies won KCAC Coach of the year for the 2nd year in a row.
Mies said, "Feels great! The guys have put in a lot of work from top to bottom and it continues to show! I think I'm just as proud, if not more proud of winning the team of character as much as winning the tournament team title. We had two guys go on mission trips, we volunteer at the Wichita RTC for the youth. We also have many of our guys volunteering at churches and wrestling clubs here in town."
"The performance of the whole team was great. This is an individual sport, but you have to lean on your family to go far and that showed this weekend! We have a very young group so it was cool to continue to see the young guys step up."
Full results of the tournament can be found here
https://www.flowrestling.org/nextgen/events/15391637/teams
The NAIA National Tournament is scheduled to begin on Mar. 5 in nearby Park City, Kan.
