Stanford is taking a record-setting contingent to the NCAA Championships for the second straight year, which has Cardinal boosters and administrators fired up about the school’s wrestling future.

But there is one minor downside to having nine wrestlers and a support staff make the trip to St. Louis.

“It doesn’t help our budget in any way,” Stanford coach Jason Borrelli joked. “We have a lot of people we’re going to take just because we’re traveling with so many people more than usual. … We’ll have a big entourage, I guess.”

The Cardinal set a program record last year with six NCAA qualifiers when they finished 19th in the team race. Thanks to a national-high five at-large entrants, Stanford blew its old mark away this year.

“We’ll enjoy it a lot more if we can put some guys on the podium and have a good team finish,” Borrelli said. “Getting nine guys there is exciting, but it’s more about what you do once you get that second chance, so to speak. We told our guys they’re now wrestling on borrowed time. Their time had expire and now they got some time back, so that can be a beautiful thing when you’re watching athletes compete on borrowed time. We’re hoping our guys rise to the occasion.”

Pac-12 champs Joey McKenna (141) and Zach Nevills (184), along with 197-pounder Josh Marchok and heavyweight Nathan Butler earned automatic qualifying spots to the national tournament.

Gabe Townsell (125), Connor Schram (133), Paul Fox (157), Keaton Subjeck (165) and Peter Galli (174) had to sweat it out another week.

“It definitely presents a little bit of a challenge kind of keeping the guys motivated,” Borrelli said. “But because there were so many and we knew we had a chance at nine, it was fairly easy because we just trained as if we had nine.”

That wasn’t just wishful thinking. Borrelli spent five years on the NCAA Wrestling Committee and watched the at-large process unfold from the inside. After stacking up the Stanford resumes next to the pool of at-large candidates, Borrelli said he felt good about the Cardinal chances at five weights.   

“I just felt like we had a great chance at getting five, but I was thinking I might just be really optimistic,” he said. “For it to happen is kind of a shock just because five is a lot.”

Borrelli said the Cardinal set two team goals at the beginning of the season. Winning the Pac-12 title was one. Stanford finished second to Arizona State.

Scoring 55 points at the NCAA Championships was the other.

“We’ve run some numbers from the past 10, 15 years and looked at where the top 10 teams had finished and how many team points we thought would comfortably put us in the top 10 — and 55 was the number,” Borrelli said. “Of course, it varies. There are some years where maybe 45 would do it. We came up with a goal as a team of scoring 55 points.

“Some things have changed a lot since then. Connor Schram was ranked really high at 125 and of course moved up a weight and Jim Wilson was wrestling for us. We’ve had to overcome some situations throughout the year already and I feel like our team is the strongest it’s ever been top to bottom in terms of closeness but also the way we’re wrestling. And 55 team points is still the goal.”

ANOTHER CHANCE

Stanford claimed five of the Pac-12’s six at-large tickets to the NCAA Championships. CSU Bakersfield’s Russell Rohlfing picked up the other. The freshman 141-pounder takes a 23-11 record into his opening-round match against Bucknell’s Tyler Smith.

ZAHID TAKES AIM AT HISTORY

Cael Sanderson and Isaiah Martinez are the only two freshmen to finish a season unbeaten since 1969. Arizona State 174-pounder Zahid Valencia is bidding to become the third. The No. 1 seed is 33-0 going into his opening-round bout against Minnesota’s Chris Pfarr.

SEEDS PLANTED

Seven Pac-12 wrestlers earned seeds for the NCAA Championships, including four in the top eight: Arizona State’s Zahid Valencia (No. 1 at 174), Anthony Valencia (No. 7 at 165), Tanner Hall (No. 7 at heavyweight) and Josh Shields (No. 9 at 157), Stanford’s Joey McKenna (No. 3 at 141) and Nathan Butler (No. 10 at heavyweight) and Oregon State’s Corey Griego (No. 14 at 197).

(Photo: All-American 141-pounder Joey McKenna is one of Stanford's nine NCAA qualifiers/John Sachs)