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Wrestling Season Preview: Middle WeightsWrestling Season Preview: Middle Weights
Trish Sexton

Joey Blaze placed third at the 2026 Big Ten Wrestling Championships in State College, Pa.

Wrestling Season Preview: Middle Weights

Previewing the 149-, 157- and 165-pound weight classes

by Brook Weber

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue is set to open its 107th season of wrestling when it hosts Kent State for a dual on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET in Holloway Gymnasium.

Amazingly, it will be the wrestling team’s first regular season opener at home since Dec. 3, 1960.

Head coach Tony Ersland enters his 13th season with 99 career wins and has the chance to secure his 100th in front of Purdue’s home crowd on Sunday. He announced a reshuffling of his staff last month after the departure of longtime head assistant coach Leroy Vega.

Jake Sueflohn, entering his 11th season with the Boilermakers, was elevated to the head assistant role. Collin Purinton was hired from North Dakota State to be an assistant coach, and Brian Anderson and Matt Ramos swapped job titles. Anderson is now an assistant coach alongside Purinton while Ramos takes on the role of director of player personnel.

The Purdue wrestling roster is the youngest it has been since the 2006-07 season, with 19 of the 30 wrestlers entering just their first or second seasons of college wrestling. Only two Boilermakers are entering their final seasons of eligibility: Brody Baumann (174 pounds) and Gavin Brown (149).

The program did away with redshirt designations this season for the sake of simplifying due to the NCAA’s new five-for-five rules. Going forward, all college student-athletes receive five years of eligibility whether or not they compete in a full varsity season. If a wrestler was a redshirt sophomore last year, they are listed as a senior this season since it is their fourth year. The designations are as such: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, Fifth Year (or Graduate Student).

This is Part 2 of a three-part roster preview, taking a look at Purdue's middle weights (149 to 165 pounds). Part 1 (125-141) released Monday and Part 3 (174-285) will release Wednesday.

149 LBS

Gavin Brown

Gavin Brown

149
5-8
Drake Hooiman

Drake Hooiman

149
5-10
Cole Solomey

Cole Solomey

141
5-10
Parker Reynolds

Parker Reynolds

149
5-9

One of just two departing fifth-year wrestlers on the roster, Brown is entering his second season at Purdue after starting every dual a year ago. The former Ohio State Buckeye was one of four wrestlers to start every dual after transferring before last season. He opened the year on a dominant 14-3 run and was the team’s win leader for most of the season. Brown finished 9-7 in dual matches and represented Purdue as the No. 12 seed at the Big Ten Championships. The starting spot is his to lose at this point, and he made sure to hold on with a 10-3 decision against the Wrestle-Offs challenger, Cole Solomey.

Wrestling Black and Gold ScrimmageGavin Brown defeated Cole Solomey, 10-3, at the preseason Wrestle-Offs open scrimmage.

A senior from DeMotte, Indiana, Solomey is coming off a strong 8-3 year competing exclusively in tournaments. He placed second in the only varsity invitational he competed in last season, earning silver at at the Tiger Style Invite where he picked up a signature 2-0 win over No. 22 Alek Martin of South Dakota State. He battled hard with Josh Edmond, the No. 6 wrestler in the country, dropping a 2-1 decision in the finals.

Drake Hooiman is a freshman from Las Vegas who was a four-time Nevada state champion. The No. 204 overall recruit in the class of 2026, he posted a 199-26 high school record at SLAM Academy and was a Powerade finalist.

Parker Reynolds rounds out the class as another promising true freshman. Coming from the state powerhouse of Brownsburg, Indiana, he was the 2025 Indiana state champ at 150 lbs. and earned marks as the No. 200 overall recruit in the country. Additionally, Reynolds was an NHSCA All-American.

157 LBS

Jackson Bradley

Jackson Bradley

157
6-0
Wyatt Krejsa

Wyatt Krejsa

157
5-8
Brody Saccoccia

Brody Saccoccia

157
5-10

There are three options to replace Stoney Buell, the longtime team captain who returned to coach Team Black at Wrestle-Offs two weeks ago.

Brody Saccoccia and Wyatt Krejsa were in the middle of an evenly matched bout in the friendly scrimmage went Krejsa unfortunately went down with an injury. Unable to finish the match, Saccoccia secured a six-point injury default that helped push Team Black to win the day.

Purdue Wrestling Black and Gold ScrimmageBrody Saccoccia took an injury default victory over Wyatt Krejsa at Wrestle-Offs.

Saccoccia enters his sophomore season after a 14-6 record competing in unattached tournaments. He won titles at the Purple Raider Open and Wabash Open, and placed fourth at the Bobby Kauffman Open. He was 8-2 in bonus point bouts and represented Purdue at the U.S. Open last April. The former Ohio state champion was the No. 193 overall recruit on the 2025 MatScouts Big Board.

Krejsa, a junior from Greenwood, Indiana, is the most experienced 157-pounder on the roster. He went 5-2 last year and made appearances at the Tiger Style Invite and Wabash Open before turning to freestyle in the U.S. Open. He has prior dual experience from his true freshman season, when he made two spot starts in the lineup wrestling above his weight class at the time. The former Indiana Mr. Gorilla winner was named Purdue’s freshman of the year for 2024-25.

Freshman Jackson Bradley rounds out the 157-pounders. Hailing from Cowan, Indiana, Bradley was a four-time Indiana state placewinner, most recently the runner-up at 157 in 2026. He was the No. 250 overall recruit on the 2026 MatScouts Big Board and a two-time NHSCA All-American. Bradley was Cowan’s first state finalist in school history.

165 LBS

Joey Blaze

Joey Blaze

165
5-11
Adrian Pellot

Adrian Pellot

165
5-10
Jacob Weaver

Jacob Weaver

165
5-11

Joey Blaze is the unequivocal top dog again this year for Purdue Wrestling. He enters his senior season ranked No. 3 in the country after a sixth-place finish at the 2026 NCAA Championships, where he became Purdue’s first back-to-back All-American since Ben Wissel in 2005-06. He has the chance to become just the fourth three-time All-American in school history this season, and he will still have one more season of eligibility to boot.

Blaze completed the fourth undefeated regular season by a Boilermaker in modern program history in 2025-26, when he went 18-0 with seven ranked victories and did not give up a single takedown. At his best, he can beat anyone in the country, and his goal is still to become Purdue’s first national champion since 1992.

Joey Blaze became Purdue's first back-to-back All-American since Ben Wissel (2005-06).Joey Blaze became Purdue's first back-to-back All-American since Ben Wissel (2005-06).

Sophomore Adrian Pellot posted a 16-8 dual record last season with one dual appearance at Davidson. All 16 of his wins came in tournament action, which led Purdue. He also paced Boilermaker freshmen in wins (16), major decisions (four), takedowns (47), match points (196) and riding time points (six), and tied Blaze for the team lead with 11 bonus wins.

Newcomer Jacob Weaver is the younger brother of sophomore Noah Weaver and the son of former Boilermaker Matt Weaver, a 1998 letterwinner. Jacob was a three-time Indiana state qualifier who placed seventh in 2026 at 157 lbs. He finished with a 170-12 record at Rossville and secured fourth place at the 2026 USA Wrestling Folkstyle National Championships.