North Dakota’s best wrestlers has chosen to remain in-state.  Cadet national champion Jared Franek, who will enter his senior season at West Fargo High School this fall, is going to be a Bison.  Franek will follow West Fargo teammates Jesse Shearer and Brandon Metz to NDSU.  Metz and Shearer are a year ahead of Franek and will begin their freshman seasons this fall.  This is big news for North Dakota State and their coaching staff, who have now managed to land North Dakota’s top wrestler three years running.  Bismarck’s Taylor Nein wrestled for the Bison as a true freshman at 141 this season, and Shearer and Metz were far and away the biggest talents this year.

Franek is on pace to finish with one of the best career’s in North Dakota state wrestling history.  The Harwood, ND native has already amassed over 200 career victories, and is a 4X state finalist and 3X champion.  He is a 2X Minnesota Christmas Tournament Champion and won titles at both Folkstyle and Freestyle USA Wrestling Cadet nationals in 2016.  Franek was also runner-up at Flonationals last spring.  Currently, Flowrestling ranks Franek as the sixteenth best 152 in the country.  Franek is projected to wrestle 149 or 157 for the Bison.

In conversation with NDwrestle, Franek noted that there was no reason in prolonging a decision that he feels so confident it.

“I decided to make the decision now because I feel that NDSU was the right all around with for me when considering school, wrestle, and environment,” Franek noted.  “After talking with family and spending the last few weeks thinking hard about it, I felt that I was ready and that there was no reason to put it off.”

Franek is uncertain at this point as to his course of study at North Dakota State.