The regional brackets and seeds for the 2013 National Wrestling Coaches Association/Cliff Keen National Dual Meet championship were released for the four qualifier regions today, and Kent State will face top-ranked Oklahoma State in the first round of action.

The competition will begin Sunday, in the Kent State, Cornell, Missouri and Oregon State regions. Missouri will be the first region to compete at 10 a.m., while the other three regions are slated to begin at 1 p.m.

Oklahoma State, Wisconsin and Northern Iowa will join Kent State in their region for the biggest, one-day wrestling event the M.A.C. Center has ever hosted: the NWCA/Cliff Keen National Duals Regional, also known as Mat Mayhem.

Kent State, who is the fourth seed in the region, will first seed Oklahoma State in the first round. According to the new USA Today/Amateur Wrestling News Division I Coaches Poll, Oklahoma State is now No. 1 in the nation after Penn State’s 22-16 loss to No. 2 Iowa this past weekend.

Kent State coach Jim Andrassy said he hopes that some of the wrestlers on the brink of being nationally ranked will pull off upsets to earn spots in the national tournament at the end of the season.

“We got a great opportunity to wrestle a great team,” Andrassy said following Friday’s meet versus Cleveland State. “I’m not gonna say that we’re gonna beat [Oklahoma State] or anything like that, but I can tell you my guys are gonna come out, we’re gonna fight, we’re gonna battle. Hopefully we can get some upsets somewhere.”

No. 18 and second-seed Wisconsin will battle No. 20 and third-seed Northern Iowa on the second mat.

Three teams ranked in the top 15 competing headline the Cornell region. Tenth-ranked and host Cornell is the top seed and No. 11 Virginia and No. 13 Nebraska are the second and third seeds. Hofstra is the fourth seed and is set to square off against Cornell.

In the Missouri region, the host Tigers are ranked sixth in the nation and will face fourth-seed Maryland in the first round. On the second mat, No. 16 Purdue and No. 21 Wyoming are the second and third seeds respectively, and will duke it out to earn a spot in the region’s finals.

The Oregon State region features two teams ranked in the top 10. Top-seeded Virginia Tech, ranked No. 7 in the new coaches poll, will face No. 25 Oklahoma in first round action. No. 9 Oregon State is the second team slated to match-up against No. 19 Michigan in front of their home crowd.

The winners of the four regions will advance to the eight-team championship dual tournament Feb. 22-23 at Minnesota’s William Arena. They will join the four teams (Illinois, Iowa, Ohio State and Minnesota) that received automatic bids to the finals.

For full regional brackets and event information, visit the National Duals section at www.nwcaonline.com.

Contact Richie Mulhall at [email protected].