St. Louis, MO – Senior Charles Small scored an upset win over Wyoming's Tate Samuelson in his first round match as the Hofstra wrestling team began competition in Session 1 of the 2021 NCAA Wrestling Championships from the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri Friday afternoon.

Seeded No. 23 at 184 pounds and entering the NCAA Championships sporting a 6-3 record, Small squared off against Samuelson, seeded No. 10 in the bracket after taking second-place at the Big 12 Championships, and scored an escape in the second period of the match following a scoreless first period. Samuelson tied the score up in the third period following an escape from the bottom position, and the two entered overtime with the score at 1-1. Following the sudden victory period and Samuelson scoring an escape point in the second overtime period, Small started the third overtime in the bottom position. Fighting for positioning, Small secured two points off a reversal with just 13 seconds remaining in the period, and Small kept Samuelson from escaping or reversing to advance to the next round.

Small will take on Northern Illinois' Brit Wilson in the second round. The No. 7  seed in the bracket and 15-1 on the year, WIlson advanced to face Small after winning by 10-3 decision over DeAndre Nassar of Cleveland State.

Hofstra's six other NCAA qualifiers also competed Thursday's first round action. No. 19 seed Holden Heller started his day in the 157-pound bracket with a 3-1 defeat in sudden victory overtime to Will Lewan of Michigan. Heller moves to the consolation bracket and will wrestle the winner of Army West Point-s Markus Hartman and Lehigh's Luca Frinzi.

At 285 pounds, No. 27 seed Zachary Knighton-Ward scored an early takedown against No. 5 seed Gannon Gremmel of Iowa State, but the Big 12 Tournament champion eventually came out on top in a 5-2 decision. Knighton-Ward moves to the consolation bracket and will take on No. 22 seed Brandon Metz of North Dakota State.

No. 30 seed Trey Rogers suffered a 12-3 major decision defeat to Arizona State's Kordell Norfleet, seeded No. 3 in the 197-pound bracket. Rogers will take on the loser of Rutgers' Billy Janzer and Chattanooga's Logan Andrew to advance to the consolation bracket.

Ricky Stamm, the No. 32 seed in the 165-pound bracket, suffered a 12-4 major decision defeat to No. 33 seed Austin Yant of Northern Iowa. Stamm was move on to face No. 30 Evan Barczak of Drexel in the next phase of the bracket.

At 149 pounds, No. 32 seed Greg Gaxiola was defeated in a 5-1 decision against No. 33 seed Cameron Hunsaker of Utah Valley. Gaxiola will face off against Cleveland State's Marcus Robinson, who was seeded No. 30 in the draw.

With the No. 33 seed in the 141-pound bracket, Vinny Vespa suffered a 10-1 major decision defeat to Indiana's Cayden Rooks in the preliminary match. Vespa will now wrestle against No. 30 seed Dylan D'Emilio of Ohio State to advance to the consolation round.

Session 2A begins at 6 p.m. ET, while Session 2B begins at 9 p.m. ET. All matches are available for viewing on the ESPN App, while a multi-cam broadcast of all the matches going on at once will be broadcast on ESPN 2.