Wrestling | 2/28/2019 8:18:00 AM

ROCHESTER, NY - Sophomore Kaidon Winters (Athens, PA/Athens Area) of the RIT wrestling team, was named the Empire Collegiate Wrestling Conference (ECWC) Wrestler of the Week on Tuesday, for the week ending Feb. 24, 2019. It is his second weekly honor of 2018-19 for Winters and seventh of his collegiate career.

Winters won the NCAA Mideast Regional Championship at 157 lbs., helping lead the No. 19 Tigers to a fourth place team finish on Feb. 23-24. Winters, who entered the meet ranked third nationally at 157 lbs., won all four of his matches to win his first regional title and improve to 31-0 on the season. Winters, the top seed, needed just 39 seconds to pin Zack Brown of host Brockport in the opening round and pinned JT Beirne of The College of New Jersey in 3:59 in the quarterfinals Saturday. On Sunday, Winters ensured he would make the trip to nationals with a win by fall in 3:44 against Dylan Van Sickell of Stevens in the semifinal. Winters won his first NCAA Regional by shutting out Christopher Muce of Centenary, 4-0 in the title match.

Winters has now won 17 of his 31 matches by fall this season and is fifth among all Division III wrestlers for the Most Outstanding Wrestler award, averaging 5.08 points per bout. He has an incredible 73-10 record with 39 falls in two years at the university.

Winters is one of three RIT wrestlers (Connor Calkins (Almond, NY/Alfred-Almond) and Dempsey King (New Hartford, NY/New Hartford)), who will represent RIT at the 2019 NCAA Division III Championship on March 8-9 at the Berglund Center in Roanoke, VA.