High school senior Ryder Wilder won his fourth Georgia state title in one minute and 55 seconds — across all four of his tournament matches combined. On FloWrestling’s most recent Class of 2026 rankings, he sits sixth at 190 pounds and 40th overall.
Searching “coach” in his phone contacts brings up some of the best programs at last weekend’s NCAA Championships — sixth-place Stanford, 10th-place NC State, 14th-place Missouri and over 20 others — accumulated from recruiting calls over the past two years.
And yet, Wilder is committed to a program that finished at the bottom of this year’s championships: Northwestern. He joins what coach Matt Storniolo called a “phenomenal” 10-man recruiting class, one of the team’s largest in recent memory, ahead of the 2026-27 season.
The recruits have a group chat together, Wilder said, and their recent conversations share a common theme.
“Almost all of us are like, ‘Yeah, we know our team’s not good now, but I think we’re going to change it,’” he said. “We’re going to be something special.”
The Wildcats will likely retain two national qualifiers next season, but after injuries forced NU to forfeit nine dual matches this year, Storniolo said the team needed to get back to its maximum roster count — not least to compete at every weight class in every dual meet, but also to provide more flexibility in training.
The reinforcements are, he said, “battle-tested.”
Alexander Pierce and Jaxon Miller boast Iowa Class 3A state championships at 106 pounds and 165 pounds, respectively, and six state finals appearances between them.
Will Detar capped his high school career with a 133-pound Class 2A state championship in Pennsylvania, one of the most competitive states in the country for high school wrestling.
Out west, heavyweight Trayvn Boger brings three Utah state titles at Class 2A and 3A. Pierce, Detar and Boger have all represented Team USA at the U17 World Championships for Greco-Roman wrestling.
Throw in Peter Snyder, a 190-pound Maryland state finalist at the highest classification. Then sprinkle in Snyder’s former teammate at Blair Academy, 175-pounder Ryan Meier, and the ’Cats will continue an emerging pipeline from the New Jersey prep school powerhouse to Evanston.
Freshman 141-pounder Billy Dekraker, a former Blair standout, said he came to NU partly to follow in the footsteps of two-time All-American and fellow Blair graduate Chris Cannon.
“I have two buddies from Blair coming in next year … and then another prep school guy, Liam Davis,” Dekraker said. “I’m super excited for those guys to come in.”
Davis, a projected lightweight, will graduate from Lake Highland Prep, the Florida program that has taken prep school wrestling by storm in recent years. Dekraker, Davis and Snyder have one title each at the National Prep Wrestling Championships.
2024 New Jersey state finalist and three-time state placer Seach Hibler — brother of redshirt freshman 149-pounder August Hibler — rounds out the incoming freshmen from the mid-Atlantic.
The only local recruit, Royce Lopez of Warren Township High School, is a two-time Illinois Class 3A placer and will provide much-needed depth at 165 pounds after redshirt sophomore 165-pounder Jacob Bostelman limped in and out of this season’s lineup with a recurring knee injury.
“Hopefully we’re able to get Northwestern back to the top of the Big Ten,” Detar said. “A lot of guys are coming in with me to help push each other, in school and on the mat.”
The ’Cats finished sixth in the country just four years ago, when all 10 starters qualified for the national championships and Ryan Deakin won the 157-pound title. Turnover in the assistant coaching staff destabilized the program, though, and veteran starters left late in the transfer window, leaving Storniolo with little time to replace them.
NU started the 2025-26 season with a thin roster, Storniolo said, and injuries to the few remaining nationals hopefuls became all the more punishing with few backups to take their places. The bad luck forced his young team to be patient, but he maintained that the existing roster has a solid foundation.
2025 national qualifier and redshirt sophomore 149-pounder Sam Cartella is likely to return after a season-ending knee injury, as is Dekraker, a 2026 qualifier. Redshirt sophomore 125-pounder Dedrick Navarro and redshirt freshman 174-pounder Eddie Enright will also be important returners after barely missing out on at-large bids in 2026.
“We’ve been a program that every once in a while has taken a dip,” Storniolo said. “But I’ve been part of rebuilding it as an assistant coach, I’ve rebuilt it as a head coach now and I know that we’re going to be able to get back to a stronger place that is more representative of how I feel this team can compete.”
Storniolo now has a solidified coaching staff by his side. Lightweights coach B.J. Futrell joined the team before the 2023-24 season, bringing experience and recruiting connections from the U.S. freestyle wrestling national team, and middleweights coach Justin Oliver mentored 2023 national champion Andrew Alirez before joining Storniolo’s staff the next season.
Detar said the quality of the coaching staff was one of his main reasons for choosing NU over Virginia, Bucknell and Lehigh. Wilder’s concerns about the lack of an upper weights coach were dissuaded in December, when the ’Cats hired Marcus Coleman, a two-time All-American and five-time national qualifier at 174, 184 and 197 pounds for Iowa State.
In an era where financial packages and name, image and likeness deals dominate the discourse around college recruiting, Wilder said he chose the ’Cats because they met his main criteria: academics and opportunities after graduation. Any coach who overly emphasized their school’s NIL offerings sounded like a “used car salesman,” he said, which made Storniolo’s pitch attractive in contrast.
“He’s not really focused on going to the portal, NIL and overrecruiting you,” Wilder said. “He just wants to make you the best you can be, which I really liked.”
Even if the development-focused pitch hasn’t changed, the program’s incoming class suggests that the ’Cats are at least keeping financial pace with their competitors. While NU didn’t offer him the sweetest financial package, Detar said it was competitive enough when combined with the long-term value of an NU degree.
Storniolo called Athletic Director Mark Jackson “the perfect hand for the job,” adding that he has continued to be supportive despite the team’s slump in recent years.
“He knows the results we’ve had aren’t acceptable to the team, to me and to the staff,” he said. “We positioned ourselves, with this recruiting class coming in, to rebuild things back to a place that administration and friends and family of the program can be proud of again.”
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