HIRAM, Ohio - May 30, 2024 - The Hiram men's wrestling program will return to competition in the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) for the 2024-25 season, as announced by the PAC and Hiram College on Thursday afternoon.
In April, it was announced that Hiram would become a full-time PAC member with all voting and membership rights effective on July 1, 2024, with competition in other sports set to begin in the 2025-26 academic year. This will allow the Hiram men's wrestling program to begin PAC competition a year earlier.
Hiram men's volleyball will also begin PAC competition in 2024-25, as it was previously accepted as a PAC affiliate member.
It marks another big step for Terriers men's wrestling, which took a 33-year hiatus from competition between 1987 and 2019 before officially returning to Hiram College in the winter of 2020. The 2020-21 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic but the program has made a roaring return in each of the last three seasons, two of which were served as an affiliate member of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC).
"We are thrilled to have our men's wrestling team join the PAC for this upcoming season," Director of Athletics Scott Pohlman said. "This is a logical fit with our full-time PAC competition beginning in 2025-26 and continues the momentum our men's wrestling program has gained since its return to Hiram College."
Hiram men's wrestling thrived throughout its previous tenure in the PAC, where it competed throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The program had 30 individual PAC Champions, with Ken Levels (1973-75), Keith Fabrizi (1974-75, 1977), Kevin Brandenburg (1977-79) and Daryl Stumph (1984-86) each winning three PAC titles to tie the program record. Hiram also had five former athletes named to the PAC 60th Anniversary Team in 2015: Brandenburg, Levels, Stumph, Bret Wyss and Mike Houska.
As a team, the Terriers placed second in the conference on nine different occasions, nearly beating a historic John Carroll program that won 21 consecutive PAC titles from 1967-1987.
Hiram wrestling will compete against four other PAC schools in 2024-25, including Saint Vincent College, Thiel College, Washington & Jefferson College and Waynesburg University. Saint Vincent, competing in its first varsity season in more than 45 years, won its first PAC title by scoring 103 team points at the 2024 PAC Championships.
The past two seasons have seen the Terriers make significant strides in the AMCC, with three student-athletes earning all-conference honors and the program hosting the conference's midseason quad meet this past January. Alex Savering and Seth Holt, two of the program's leaders in wins since 2021, will look to spearhead the team and keep that momentum moving forward into the winter of 2024-25.
