KENT, Ohio - Riding the momentum of one of its best seasons in modern history, the Kent State wrestling team recently announced its 2009-10 schedule. The Golden Flashes will face stiff competition early and often in both dual meets and tournaments.

"It’s pretty comparable to past schedules in terms of quality of teams," Head Coach Jim Andrassy said of his team’s dual meets. "We picked up Virginia Tech and Michigan who should be preseason Top 20 teams. We picked up a good Big Ten team in Purdue and Maryland out of the ACC who finished 10th at the NCAA Tournament last year."

KSU will head to Blacksburg, Va. to open the season with a dual meet and tournament hosted by Virginia Tech on back-to-back days (Nov. 7 & 8). The Hokies will be the first of at least four dual meet opponents that were ranked in last season’s final USA Today/NWCA/Intermat Top 25 Coaches Poll.

"We’ll see a lot of ACC teams at Virginia Tech’s tournament, who were well-represented at the NCAA Tournament last year," Andrassy said. "The idea is to wrestle as many top-quality opponents as you can. All of our tournaments are very high-quality tournaments. Altogether it’s a pretty solid schedule."

On Nov. 14 the Flashes head to Brockport for the first of two straight weekend trips to the state of New York for the Oklahoma Gold and Body Bar Tournaments. KSU finished second to only Boise State at last season’s Body Tournament in Ithaca.

The Flashes will compete in front of their home crowd for the first time on Dec. 4 with wrestling and gymnastics intrasquads going on simultaneously in the M.A.C. Center.  On Dec. 13, the M.A.C. Center will host a tri-meet with Michigan and Newberry. The Wolverines finished 11th at last year’s NCAA Tournament, while Newberry was second at the Division II national championships.

Following a Dec. 20 match at Clarion, the Flashes head to Greensboro, N.C. for the Southern Scuffle (Dec. 29 & 30) to close out the 2009 portion of the schedule. Area rival Cleveland State comes to the M.A.C. Center to open up the 2010 calendar year on Jan. 5.

The Flashes will likely run into more nationally ranked opponents during their second trip to the state of Virginia Jan. 8-9 at the Virginia Duals. The 16-team dual tournament guarantees each team at least three matches. The following weekend, KSU makes the short trip to Ashland for three battles in one day at the Wendy’s Duals against Purdue, Maryland and Ashland. The Boilermakers were ranked 25th in last season’s final poll, while the host Eagles were ranked 17th in Division II.

Conference duals begin Jan. 22 at Northern Illinois. KSU will host three MAC duals in the month of February against Buffalo (Feb. 7), Eastern Michigan (Feb. 14) and Central Michigan (Feb. 21). The late season matchup with the Chippewas has determined the MAC regular season champion in each of the three previous seasons.

Central Michigan will play host to the 2010 Mid-American Conference Tournament March 6-7. Two weeks later, Omaha’s Qwest Center will display the nation’s elite at the 2010 NCAA Championships. Last season, the Golden Flashes sent six wrestlers to the NCAA Championships and produced two All-Americans.