LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The No. 4 ranked West Liberty University wrestling team wrapped up competition today at the NWCA National Duals placing fourth out of 16 teams. 

After winning a pair of thrilling duals on Friday to clinch a spot in the semifinals, the Hilltoppers were not able to keep the momentum going and suffered two losses this afternoon to No. 1 Central Oklahoma (38-3) and No. 11 Mary (37-3).

While today did not go their way Coach Irwin and the Hilltoppers can take a lot of positives from a fourth place finish in a bracket that featured 14 nationally-ranked teams. "We had goals for this weekend and we reached a number of them," said Irwin. "The biggest one we accomplished was putting together strings of 10 matches where our team brought the heat. I am extremely proud of our guys as a whole."

No. 6 Vincent Scollo highlighted the first match of the day with a 6-5 decision in a nationally-ranked faceoff against No. 2 Dylan Lucas, of Central Oklahoma, while freshman Khyvon Grace earned the other victory battling out a 10-8 sudden victory over his Mary University opponent at 141.

This was the first National Duals appearance for the Black and Gold since Coach Irwin took over the program. "We are very grateful to be at the National Duals for the first time in my tenure here," said Irwin. "We are going to be able to use this experience to clearly lay out the ground we need to take in over the next nine weeks."

No time to waste, West Liberty will be right back to work preparing for a trip to Ashland University on Thursday followed by the Spartan Mat Classic Saturday. " We are excited to take what we learned this week and apply it to our training," noted Coach Irwin. "We need to bury the word "hope" and start executing at a higher rate to close out matches and finish takedowns to take the lead at the end!"

Follow Hilltopper wrestling all season online at HilltopperSports.com as well as on Twitter (@WLU_Wrestling | @WLathletics), Instagram (@wlu_wrestling | @wlu_athletics), and Facebook.