Virginia Wrestling announces 2021-22 newcomers

Posted on Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021, 5:20 pm

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Courtesy UVA Media Relations

The Virginia wrestling program will have 12 new members on the squad for the 2021-22 academic year, head coach Steve Garland announced with the release of the newcomer class this week.

The incoming class features wrestlers from nine different states and includes six state champions and multiple high school All-Americans. The class also features 10 incoming first years, and a pair of transfers in junior college transfer Dominic Isola and graduate transfer Jared Verkleeren from Penn State.

The newcomer class features four wrestlers from Ohio (Kyren Butler, Haydn Danals, Landon Hacker and Marlon Yarbrough II), and one each from California (Rocco Contino), Florida (Dominic Isola), Georgia (Gavin Cagle), Michigan (Joe Haynes), New Jersey (Colden Dorfman), New York (Vikram Ostrander), Pennsylvania (Verkleeren) and Virginia (Erik Roggie),

“Every year we work really hard at bringing in great young men to our program,” Garland said. “It is always a tough process because of the many hurdles, however, this year with COVID we had more challenges than any year I can remember. That said, I’m proud of what the staff pulled off and who we have coming into our program.

“We have state champions and All-Americans up and down the board. We have some under-rated guys that we think will surprise some people in the coming years as well. Most of all, we have young men that we believe can help grow and ultimately leave here a better version of the guy that came in here as a first year. We are looking forward to that challenge.”

The newcomers will join a group of returning wrestlers that includes seven returning NCAA qualifiers from the 2020-21 academic year. The Cavaliers had eight qualify for the NCAA Championships marking the second-highest number of qualifiers in a single season for Virginia. The returning squad also boasts a trio of All-ACC honorees from a year ago with three runner-up finishes at the ACC Championships from Justin McCoy (New Paris, Pa.) at 157 pounds, Jake Keating (Naperville, Ill.) at 165 pounds and Jay Aiello (Chantilly, Va.) at 197 pounds.