NC United Launches the NHSCA Most Outstanding Wrestler Award

NC United Wrestling

Official Announcement · March 2026

NC United Launches the NHSCA Most Outstanding Wrestler Award

A new annual award honoring NC's best at the tournament that matters most.

North Carolina's first NC United NHSCA MOWs; pictured from left to right: Carson Worrick, Aiden White, and Drew Teeter. Missing: senior Bentley Sly and freshman Braylen Yates.

The Tournament That Defines NC Wrestling Futures

There is no tournament on the calendar that does more for North Carolina wrestlers than the NHSCA High School Nationals. Every March, hundreds of NC athletes make the trip to Virginia Beach, and the coaches who recruit them follow.

Virginia, NC State, UNC, App State, UMO, Roanoke, Pembroke, Belmont Abbey, and many others are in the building every year, not as spectators but as active participants, watching, evaluating, and engaging directly with NC athletes on the tournament floor. Relationships get built. Offers get extended. Futures get decided.

That is not an accident. NHSCA has become the most influential recruiting tournament for NC athletes at any level, freshman through senior. The brackets are deep, the competition is national, and the exposure is real. A strong performance here carries weight in ways that a state title or regional result simply cannot match. College coaches know what it means to place at NHSCA.

NC United has tracked this data for years. The numbers tell a compelling story: 85% of NC wrestlers who go on to compete in college choose a school within three hours of home, and nearly every program that recruits them is represented at NHSCA every single year. The pipeline from Virginia Beach to a college room runs almost entirely through this tournament. It changes lives. It deserved an award to match.

Introducing the NC United NHSCA Most Outstanding Wrestler Award

Beginning with the 2026 NHSCA High School Nationals, NC United Wrestling is proud to launch the Most Outstanding Wrestler Award, presented annually to the top-performing NC wrestler in each of the four divisions: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior.

The award itself is a hand-crafted wooden hammer, engraved with the NC United crest and the North Carolina state silhouette, finished with a leather-wrapped handle. At 14 inches overall with an 8.5 x 3 inch head and approximately 2.5 pounds, it is built to be held, displayed, and remembered. It is not a trophy you put on a shelf and forget. It is a piece of hardware that means something.

In wrestling, the hammer is not a metaphor. It is the point. You go to the mat to impose your will, to be the one delivering force rather than absorbing it. That is what the best NC wrestlers did at NHSCA this tournament. The hammer is the right award for what they earned.

NC United has always said it: NC Bringing Home Hardware. This is the hardware. Crafted, engraved, and permanent, just like what these wrestlers built in Virginia Beach.

Michael Macchiavello

Co-Founder, NC United Wrestling

“NHSCA has always been the tournament that matters most for NC wrestlers. We've watched it change careers, open doors, and put North Carolina on the map nationally. Launching the Most Outstanding Wrestler Award is our way of formally recognizing what this tournament already means to our community and making sure the performances that deserve to be remembered actually are.”

Matt Hickey

Co-Founder, NC United Wrestling

“The data we've tracked through RecruitNC makes it clear — NHSCA is where NC futures get decided. The coaches who sign NC kids are in that building every year. We built this award because the tournament deserved one, and because the wrestlers who go out there and deliver on that stage deserve more than a bracket result. The hammer is hardware. It's permanent. That's the point.”

The award is not simply for the highest placement. It recognizes the full picture of a performance: placement, bracket difficulty, seeding, wins over ranked opponents, and competitive context. It is designed to honor the wrestlers who showed up to the most important tournament of the year and delivered when it mattered most.

This is an annual award. It will be presented every year at NHSCA Nationals. The 2026 class is the first. Their names will be the first on a list that, over time, will become one of the most meaningful records in NC wrestling history.

2026 NC United NHSCA Most Outstanding Wrestler Award — Inaugural Recipients

The 2026 recipients represent the best of what NC brought to Virginia Beach this year: a national champion, a runner-up, two unseeded wrestlers who dismantled the bracket without a seed, and a sophomore who knocked out the No. 2 seed en route to the podium.

Freshman MOW — Braylen Yates

Seeded No. 4
East Rowan · 170 lbs · 1st Place — National Champion

Yates went 5-0 without dropping a match to claim the Freshman national title at 170 pounds. Clean, dominant, and composed from start to finish, the kind of performance that sets the tone for a career.

Sophomore MOW — Drew Teeter

Seeded No. 12
Mooresville · 182 lbs · 4th Place

Entering as the 12th seed, Teeter beat the No. 2 seed D. Deshotels on his way to a 4th place finish. It was the defining win of any NC sophomore this tournament, a lower seed taking out a top-two opponent on the national stage.

Junior MOW — Co-Winners

The Junior division produced two NC wrestlers who both placed 4th, both unseeded, both with multiple wins over seeded opponents, and at two different weight classes. Picking one over the other would have been arbitrary. Both deserved the award.

Junior MOW — Aiden White

Unseeded
Weddington · 132 lbs · 4th Place

White went 9-2 on the tournament, unseeded, with wins over the No. 3 seed G. Serros and No. 5 seed C. Powe. Nine wins at a national tournament without a seed is a statement. He still has another year.

Junior MOW — Carson Worrick

Unseeded
Davie · 160 lbs · 4th Place

Worrick went 7-2 with four wins over seeded opponents: No. 3 N. Chechkovsky, No. 4 S. Strobel, No. 5 T. McNair, and the No. 9 seed. He entered without a seed and methodically took apart the bracket, the kind of run that turns heads in recruiting rooms.

Senior MOW — Bentley Sly

Seeded No. 2
Stuart Cramer · 152 lbs · 2nd Place — National Runner-Up

Sly went 6-1, reached the national championship match, and closed his NHSCA career as a 3x All-American (2024, 2025, 2026). He heads to Appalachian State as one of the most decorated NC wrestlers in tournament history.

The Most Outstanding Wrestler Award will be presented annually at NHSCA Nationals. Nominations and selection are conducted by NC United Wrestling based on performance data tracked through the RecruitNC platform.

Full 2026 NHSCA results and historical data: app.ncwrestlingunited.com/nhsca/2026