With roughly 50 days left in the NCAA men’s wrestling season, athletes around the country can feel a heightened sense of urgency with each passing moment.

The season will be over before you know it — and for some, their college careers.

But amidst that ticking clock (and mounting pressure), Appalachian State head coach JohnMark Bentley wants his wrestlers to know they’re at a place perfectly suited to ready them for what’s ahead.

That place — nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Boone, North Carolina — has been under Bentley’s stewardship for 17 years now.

During that tenure, the four-time national coach of the year finalist has amassed nearly half (13/28) of the program’s regular season/tournament titles as a member of the Southern Conference. He’s also helped produce 64 individual NCAA qualifiers, including four of the eight wrestlers in App State history to earn NCAA All-American honors.

“We can point to the ratings and stuff that we’ve won over the last several years, (the) last decade, and you can talk about those and say, ‘Hey guys, this is evidence that we know how to prepare you for the postseason, and you can have confidence that you’re in a program that has a culture of sustained winning,” Bentley said.

“I think just having our guys take confidence in that, like hey, you’re going to be the best version of yourself in March.

“That’s how this program’s always been built. And yeah, there’s been some ups and downs throughout the season and competition, but that’s going to help prepare you for March. And you can take confidence in that because there’s results to back it up.”

Staying In The Fight

Sporting a 6-5 dual record to date (3-0 in the SoCon), the Mountaineers, like most teams, have had their highs and lows this season.

Coach Bentley has regularly tested his guys against the best programs in the region, and this year is no different.

Of App State’s five dual losses, three have come against ranked power conference foes, including #9 NC State, #11 Virginia Tech and #17 West Virginia.

And while the Hokies most recently put it on the Mountaineers, 39-0, just after Thanksgiving Bentley’s squad fought tooth and nail in a 21-14 home defeat to the Wolfpack.

“When we wrestled NC State, I felt like we had the advantage being at home, which I think is huge for us,” says Bentley.

“I also think it’s just about matchups, right? And I feel like we matched up a little bit better with NC State.

“Against Virginia Tech, I didn’t feel like we matched up very well. We were on the road. We wrestled the night before at home. There was just a lot of things that were very different —  (especially) the environment.

“And then I think the biggest thing that hurt us was momentum. We lost two close matches that we thought we had a chance to win (and) they just kind of snowballed from there.”

Asked about his message to the team afterwards, Bentley emphasized the relentlessness needed to defeat the very best.

“To beat really good guys, you have to stay in the fight for a really long time. And I felt like we were in the fight in a couple matches (for) five-and-a-half, six minutes.

“But in those moments, either we went down early and couldn’t fight back, or just (didn’t) finish a match the way we wanted to.”

App State Identity

Another (repeated) point of emphasis at Appalachian State is the theme of identity.

On a program-wide scale, the head coach hopes that entails a “blue-collar, workmanlike mentality” and a toughness that helps the Mountaineers win in the third period as conditioning and resiliency are stretched to their limits.

But just as important is each athlete’s ability to identify and implement the best version of themselves out on the mat.

“I think the biggest thing is finding an identity that works for you and sticking to it,” Bentley said. 

“You’ve got to be really in tune with your identity…and when you compete you’ve got to force your identity to be where the action takes place.

“Use all your assets and your strengths as a factor to decide the match.”

One Mountaineer whom Bentley feels is a strong representation of team/individual identity is 184-pounder Tomas Brooker.

The Harrisburg, North Carolina native qualified for NCAAs as a true freshman, but a season-ending injury put him on the shelf just as the 2024-25 campaign began.

Now he’s back and picking up steam at the right time.

“He (Brooker) works extremely hard,” Bentley said of the highest-ranked Mountaineer (#24 at 184). “He puts a lot of time in, a lot of energy and he competes hard. It’s important to him. He wants to win.”

“I think those are all things that are really important (to) our team identity and are part of our core beliefs — and I think he epitomizes that.”

Even so, following his lengthy absence from competition, it took Brooker (17-8) a minute to re-pair that identity with the results he’d grown accustomed to.

“He obviously had some rust from being off the mat for as long as he was…(and) he had some early losses that probably frustrated him,” Bentley said.

Ultimately, the head Mountaineer points to the Southern Scuffle — where Brooker finished third — as a real turning point for the redshirt sophomore.

“He had a couple of nationally ranked wins, and I think that’s kind of catapulted his confidence.”

As the postseason approaches, Bentley is counting on that form/confidence to help propel App State toward its customary success in March.

Hunger, Resiliency Key To Homestretch

Along with Brooker, names like Kaden Keiser and Stephan Monchery will be key cogs for the Mountaineers as well.

Keiser — a South Dakota native ranked 25th at 149 pounds — was a sudden-victory defeat away from punching an automatic bid to NCAAs last season. And Monchery made his NCAA Championships debut as a true freshman heavyweight in 2025.

They’re all part of an App State team whose motivation was never in question — and whose resiliency has impressed their coach with each passing day.

“Leading into the season, I probably was the most confident in just how hungry our team was,” Bentley said. “That was probably the thing I was sure about.

“We had a team that was going to be hungry and compete hard…and give ourselves a chance to make noise.

“Now, I think the biggest thing I’m starting to have confidence in is our guys’ resilience and their ability to adapt and improve and learn from their mistakes. Because we’ve made plenty of mistakes this year…but I do feel like we’re getting better each and every time we wrestle.”

Time will tell how that improvement parlays into postseason performance. But if history is any indicator, it’d be foolish to think App State won’t be at its best when the lights are the brightest. 

“I’m proud of how they battle and how they fight,” Bentley said of the 2025-26 Mountaineers.

“I think they really epitomize what our program is about.”

Watch Appalachian State home duals this season live on Flowrestling.