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NC United Wrestling
By NC United · May 2026
The signing season for North Carolina's Class of 2026 is in the books, and the picture it paints is one of a deepening ecosystem. Forty-nine wrestlers from across the state have committed to wrestle at the next level — from Division I rosters to NJCAA programs hunting for immediate contributors — and the pattern of where they landed tells you as much about the colleges doing the recruiting as it does about the talent leaving North Carolina's mats. See every ranked senior on the Class of 2026 prospect rankings.
Below, we hand out four awards to the colleges that did the most recruiting North Carolina's Class of 2026. The criteria are simple: who took home the volume, who took home the top end, who found the most value, and who built the most promising new path into the state.
Class of 2026 · male commits
Who Recruited the Most NC Talent — Class of 2026
Forty-nine verified male commits. Top programs shown; remaining 17 programs landed one commit each.
Division breakdown
Where the Class of 2026 Landed
Forty-nine verified male commits across Division I, II, III, NAIA, NJCAA, and club wrestling.
- D3: 17
- D2: 15
- D1: 12
- NJCAA: 3
- NAIA: 1
- Club: 1
NC United Recruiting Awards
The Four Winners — Class of 2026
Top Haul: UNC Pembroke
It wasn't close. UNC Pembroke walked away with seven North Carolina commits — Deyari El-Amin, Gavin Yow, James Campos, Cameron Massey, Abe Rodriguez, Kaulton Kuddie, and Imon Freeman — more than any other program in the state, regardless of division.
What makes the haul matter is that the Braves didn't just win on volume. The Braves landed three ranked wrestlers in the process. Imon Freeman, ranked #11 in the class, is a two-time state champion who closed out his senior season with a 5A title at Montgomery Central. Gavin Yow, #13, finished his senior season at A.L. Brown with a 7A title at 190 and a 4.3 GPA to match the production on the mat. And the volume runs deep across weights, from Abe Rodriguez at 126 up through Kaulton Kuddie at 190 — exactly the kind of full-lineup recruiting that builds a sustainable program from the ground up.
Seven commits from a single class is a statement. UNC Pembroke made North Carolina its backyard, and the backyard delivered.
Best Top-End Class: Appalachian State
If UNC Pembroke won on volume, Appalachian State won on ceiling. The Mountaineers landed the consensus #1 wrestler in the entire class — Bentley Sly — along with #12 Avery Rhymer, giving them the most decorated single haul of the class.
Sly's résumé is the kind that doesn't come around often. The Stuart Cramer star is a four-time state champion, a three-time NHSCA All-American, and an Ironman All-American — and as a senior he took fourth at Super 32 and second at the App State Open, a college tournament loaded with Division I hammers. Beating that level of competition before he's even set foot on campus tells you exactly what App State is getting. He is, by any reasonable measure, the crown jewel of North Carolina's 2026 class, and he's staying in-state to wrestle Division I at App State.
Rhymer arrived with a résumé that could stand on its own. He finished his career as a state champion, NHSCA All-American, and one of the most consistent upper-weight performers in North Carolina. Two Division I signees, one of them the best wrestler in the state — that's how you win the top-end award. Quality over quantity, and the quality here is undeniable.
The most decorated single haul of the class.
Best Value Find: Lynchburg
The value award goes to the program that punched above its recruiting weight, and no one did that better than Lynchburg. Here's the kicker: Lynchburg's wrestling program doesn't even exist on a mat yet. It's a net-new program, built from the ground up this year under head coach Vinny Barber and set to debut next season. And in its very first recruiting class, with no roster, no results, and no history to sell, it pulled six North Carolina commits — Joseph Trahan, Fares Alkurdasi, Cody Bui, Josh Brezac, Jacob Reigel, and Cameron Gue.
For facility context and the longer Lynchburg story, see our earlier feature: Building a Program with Intention.
The headline gets are the two ranked wrestlers. Jacob Reigel, the #15 wrestler in the class out of Mount Pleasant, is a two-time state runner-up and an NHSCA All-American who closed his senior season placing eighth in the country. Cameron Gue, ranked #29, brings a 4A state title and a long history of national-tournament reps dating back multiple seasons. Landing two ranked, nationally-tested wrestlers without the recruiting advantages traditionally associated with established Division I or Division II programs is the definition of a value find.
Six commits, two of them ranked, before the program has wrestled a single match — Barber built a debut class from nothing that programs with decades of history would be proud of.
Six commits, two of them ranked, before the program has wrestled a single match.
Emerging Pipeline: The Citadel
The fourth award recognizes a program building a brand-new path into North Carolina, and The Citadel made the most convincing case. The Bulldogs landed two ranked Division I commits — Andrew Meadows (#6) and Dominic Hittepole (#22) — from a state that hasn't historically fed their roster.
At #6 in the class, Meadows is one of the top-ranked commits in the entire 2026 pool — a three-time state champion out of Mount Airy and an NHSCA All-American. Hittepole brings his own decorated résumé: a two-time state champion at Wheatmore and an NHSCA All-American, with a 4.2 GPA to match. Two Division I-caliber wrestlers, both ranked, both NHSCA All-Americans — that's not an accident, it's the start of a new recruiting relationship with the state.
What makes this more than a one-off is the leadership now driving it. In May 2026, The Citadel named Tim McCall as the Bulldogs' wrestling head coach, and his background explains everything about why North Carolina is suddenly in play. McCall is a North Carolina native out of Hope Mills who spent nearly a decade at NC State, first as a training center athlete and later as an assistant coach, a stretch in which he helped them win four consecutive ACC Championships and aided in the development of 17 ACC Champions. A coach with those roots and that résumé knows exactly where the talent is in this state and how to recruit it.
With McCall now leading it, we believe this is only the beginning.
Pulling two of North Carolina's most accomplished wrestlers in a single class signals a program that has decided the state is worth recruiting — and with McCall now leading it, we believe this is only the beginning.
The Bigger Picture
What ties these awards together is regional reach. The data has been consistent on this point: the overwhelming majority of North Carolina's college wrestlers choose a school within a few hours of home, and this class reinforced it. UNC Pembroke and Appalachian State kept top talent in-state, while regional programs just across the border — Lynchburg and Roanoke among them — pulled NC wrestlers into the same tight Carolinas-and-Virginia corridor that the state's families increasingly favor. These programs aren't competing with the rest of the country for this talent so much as competing with each other for athletes who, more often than not, want to stay close.
That's the quiet story of the Class of 2026. The ecosystem isn't just producing wrestlers — it's keeping them in the region, developing them, and feeding them into a network of programs that have learned exactly where to look.