‘Smelling the flowers a little bit’: Northern Colorado’s Andrew Alirez trains for 2nd NCAA title in final collegiate season

In his last months of college wrestling, Andrew Alirez is more focused on performing well than worrying about results.

If he wrestles to the best of his ability, without getting all hung up on the score or the match, he said, then he’ll do what he returned to Northern Colorado this year to do: win a second NCAA title.

“I just feel in my heart nobody has seen the best version of me out there,” he said. “I feel like I’ve wrestled better in the room (the UNC wrestling room) a lot. I think it’s just attributed to, ‘I have to win. You got to do it. You got to do it.’

“I just really want to be able to put on good performances and be able to go out there and wrestle and come off the mat and be really proud of myself.”

Alirez, 24 and in his sixth year at UNC, has accomplished all of what he set out to do with the Bears when arrived in fall 2019 as the top recruit in the nation.

He won the 141-pound NCAA title with a 28-0 record in 2023. UNC is in national rankings and aiming to qualify at least five wrestlers to NCAAs, which would match a program high. The goal is to send six guys, UNC coach Troy Nickerson said.

The Bears were ranked 13th in a Dec. 16 poll by FloWrestling.

Five wrestlers, including Alirez, qualified for nationals in March 2020 before the tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three guys went to nationals last year while Alirez sat out on an Olympic redshirt season: Windsor High School graduate Dominick Serrano, Stevo Poulin and Vinny Zerban. Nickerson adds 165-pounder Clayton Ulrey to the NCAA list for this year, and he hopes a sixth guy pops up to get to Philadelphia in March.

Serrano is ranked 14th at 133; Poulin is seventh at 125; Zerban is 17th; and Ulrey is 33rd, according to FloWrestling.

Alirez will likely lead the effort. He’s ranked No. 1 at 141 this week in one poll and No. 2 in another. Alirez has been a marquee name in the sport since he was in high school at Greeley Central.

USA Wrestling, the governing body of the sport in the U.S., wants Alirez to be in their picture for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Winning an Olympic gold medal has been a goal of Alirez’s since he started in the sport, but L.A. is way off in the future now.

Nickerson said Alirez’s focus on doing the best he can puts him on a winning path.

“If he does that, yeah, I don’t think there is anybody that can beat him,” Nickerson said.

Alirez was ranked first at 141 on Monday by FloWrestling, and he was ranked second by The Open Mat as of Tuesday.

Defending 141 NCAA champion Jesse Mendez of Ohio State is ahead of Alirez in The Open Mat poll. Alirez tops Mendez in the FloWrestling rankings. Penn State All-American Beau Bartlett is third in both polls. Windsor High School graduate Vance VomBaur of Minnesota is ranked fourth at 141 by The Open Mat and sixth by FloWrestling.

VomBaur was an All-American last year after finishing eighth at NCAAs. Nebraska’s Brock Hardy is also back in the field this year after finishing third at the national tournament.

Alirez said he’s trying to take in this final season of collegiate wrestling, and a last year of this collegial atmosphere in the sport. Any wrestling he does from here on out will certainly have a different dynamic and environment.

“I’m kind of really trying to relish in every opportunity, and every time I’m out there, every time I’m with the guys, even if it’s a practice or it’s a trip,” he said. “So this, this year, is kind of why I’m smelling the flowers a little bit getting ready to accomplish my goal again, of being a two-time national champion.”

Zoned into wrestling for Olympic trials

In the spring, Alirez took a tough loss in a U.S. Olympic trial match at Penn State.

Nick Lee, a former Penn State wrestler, beat Alirez 11-9 in a 65-kilogram semifinal. Zain Retherford, another former Penn State wrestler, beat Lee in two out of three matches for the 65kg title. Retherford made the U.S. Olympic team at a World Qualification Tournament in Turkey.

Alirez sat out the 2023-24 college season at UNC to train for the U.S. trials, with the goal to make the team and represent the U.S. at the Paris Olympics last summer.

Alirez announced his decision in September 2023 to go for Paris, and he said it was a tough year — an isolating experience and lonely at times.

Alirez wasn’t in school during his training. He trained hard, but he had a lot of downtime outside of the UNC wrestling room. Alirez said he was so “zoned into wrestling” that he didn’t get out and live a little.

Alirez said the loss to Lee was not fun to go through. He said the experience at Penn State was where he realized the current theme to “be the best version” of himself.

“When you fall short, especially when you believe, you really know you can do it, it’s heartbreaking,” he said. “But, on the flip side, everything you learn through life, it’s like, ‘OK, how are you going to respond?’ ”

Nickerson said what he’s seen with Alirez since the redshirt year is a change in priorities and focus on the mat. Alirez, of course, wants to win. He always wants to win. But, instead of honing in on the result of matches, the UNC coach said Alirez is concentrating on how he wrestles.

Nickerson said this mindset is a natural progression for elite-level wrestlers.

“Once they do that, I think you actually see them perform at a whole new level,” Nickerson said. “I see it on a daily basis that there is another level, and if that side comes out, it’s going to be scary.”

After UNC

USA Wrestling coach Joe Russell said Alirez is young for international wrestling. Alirez competed in freestyle at the Olympic trials. Russell said Alirez should be “right in the mix” for the Los Angeles Olympics, and he hopes Alirez will opt to try for the U.S. team again.

“A lot of growth is post-college,” said Russell, the manager of men’s freestyle programs for USA Wrestling based in Colorado Springs. “He will be in the prime of his career.”

Russell said he became more acquainted with Alirez in summer 2023 while traveling to Poland. Alirez won a freestyle gold at 65kg competing for Team USA at the Poland Open in Warsaw.

Alirez turned heads at the open in his first match with an 8-0 win over world-ranked No. 5 Haji Aliyev from Azerbaijan. Aliyev was a three-time world champion and two-time Olympic medalist when Alirez beat him.

“Andrew took him down and turned him, and the look on his (Aliyev’s) face was amazing,” Russell said. “That’s when I knew he was ready to be one of the best in the world.”

Bill Zadick coached the U.S. freestyle team in Paris. He said Alirez has a lot of natural abilities and works hard. Zadick said Alirez is smart on the mat and he adjusts quickly with his mind and his body.

Alirez has been around the sport for about 20 years.

“He’s well-coordinated, and it’s kinesiology, right?” Zadick added. “He ends up in the right place a lot of the time. Some guys have to work at that.”

Alirez has trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. He’s participated in national team camps, and he worked out there during his redshirt year away from UNC, Zadick and Russell said.

The U.S. coaches are Alirez fans. Big fans. Russell said Alirez is a fun guy who makes the coaches’ work more fun. They want Alirez to be around more often after his college career is finished.

Alirez understandably isn’t looking that far ahead. He’s interested in mixed martial arts fighting. He has the Top Notch Wrestling Club based at UNC that he runs with his father, Andrew, brother, Zander, and others. Alirez’s dad operated the club decades ago, and they restarted it with three kids since COVID. Top Notch now trains about 60-70 athletes as young as 5 years old and into the college ranks.

Alirez jokingly said he might also consider becoming a mountain man somewhere. Russell and Zadick, of course, have other ideas.

“We hope we can convince him freestyle and the Olympics in L.A. is the path he wants to take,” Zadick said.

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