In his second full season wrestling as a Mustang, Cal Poly’s 125-pound Koda Holeman received an at-large bid to the 2025 NCAA Championships.
The redshirt sophomore will be the fourth Mustang to qualify for the NCAA tournament taking place March 20-22 in Philadelphia. He’ll be joining heavyweight champion Trevor Tinker and automatic qualifiers Chance Lamer and Zeth Romney.
He’s the only wrestler on the team to receive an at-large bid, although redshirt freshman Daschle Lamer is the first alternate at 184 pounds. He will make the trip to Philadelphia, but will only wrestle if someone in the 184 pound class gets injured or does not make weight.
Holeman held the No. 1 seed in his weight class heading into the Pac-12 Championships on March 7, but fell in both the title match and then the true second-place match.
Overall, he held a 19-9 regular season record and carried a No. 29 national ranking into the conference tournament.
As the No. 28 seed of the NCAA tournament at 125 pounds, he will face off against No. 5 ranked Richard Figueroa, last year’s NCAA champion.
Figueroa has a 16-2 record this year coming out of Arizona State University, and remains one of the toughest matchups in the bracket.
Still, Holeman has put up strong performances throughout the season.
His impressive regular season resume includes an overtime victory over Oregon State’s Maximo Renteria on Feb. 7, who ranked No. 13 heading into Pac-12’s.
In the opening round of the conference championships, Holeman defeated Little Rock’s Jayden Carson via major decision, 16-2. He then lost to Renteria, 11-2, setting up a true second-place bout.
Holeman would fall in the first period of that match, leaving the berth to the NCAA’s up to an at-large bid.
Prior to this season, Holeman held a 17-14 overall record. He went 12-9 as a redshirt freshman last year and wrestled in 10 matches his redshirt year, going 5-5 to maintain his eligibility.
No. 30 ranked 165-pound Luka Wick and No. 29 ranked 157-pound Legend Lamer did not receive an at-large bid, and their seasons are over.
For Legend, this means the end of his career as a Mustang. He was coming off three consecutive trips to the NCAA Championships.
Head Coach Jon Sioredas and the rest of the team will have a week to prepare until they send their four wrestlers to the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
The NCAA released the official seedings for each weight class earlier this week.