The start of March Madness officially gets underway at noon Thursday.

But so does the NCAA Division I wrestling championships at Cleveland, and the WPIAL will be well represented.

There are 50 wrestlers from Pennsylvania who are entered in the tournament, 21 from the WPIAL, including Jeannette grad Ethan Berginc.

This is Berginc’s fourth trip to the nationals. He is 0-6. He will be competing at 133 pounds.

“The goal is to become an All-American,” Berginc said. “I changed my training style under a new coach. I just to need to wrestle better.”

Berginc wrestles for Army West Point and was a 2020 PIAA champion and a third-place finisher in 2021 while wrestling for former coach Vince DeAugustine at Hempfield. Jeannette and Hempfield were a co-op in wrestling.

Berginc compiled a 124-40 record in high school and is 90-32 at West Point.

“I am more at peace and confident with my wrestling,” Berginc said. “Whatever happens, happens.”

Other Westmoreland County wrestlers competing include Latrobe’s Willochell brothers — Luke (133) and Gabe (149) — who wrestle at Wyoming, Hempfield’s Lucas Kapusta (149) of Lock Haven, Franklin Regional’s Garrett Thompson (174) of Ohio, Norwin’s Chase Kranitz (184) and Mt. Pleasant’s Dayton Pitzer (285) — both at Pitt.

The Panthers have eight wrestlers going to the nationals. They are Mt. Lebanon’s Mac Stout (197), Waynesburg’s Luca Augustine (174), Connellsville’s Jared Keslar (165), Chartiers Valley’s Dylan Evans (157), Kade Brown (149) and Seneca Valley’s Tyler Chappell (125).

Chappell’s brother (Dylan, 141) wrestles for Bucknell.

Penn State is favored to win its fifth consecutive team title, 13th overall, and seven of its 10 wrestlers are seeded No. 1.

They are Luke Lilledahl (125), Shayne Van Ness (149), P.J. Duke (157), Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), Levi Haines (174), Waynesburg Central’s Rocco Welsh (184) and Josh Barr (197).

The other qualifiers are Marcus Blaze (133), Braeden Davis (141) and Cole Mirasola (285).

Other WPIAL wrestlers who qualified are Canon-McMillan’s Andrew Binni (125) of Navy, Elizabeth Forward’s Ryan Michaels (149) of Edinboro, West Allegheny’s Ty Watters (157) and Frazier’s Rune Lawrence (197) of West Virginia and Central Valley’s Brennan Morgan (285) of Virginia.

Waynesburg Central is well represented with Wyatt Henson (141) at Lock Haven, Mac Church (165) at Virginia Tech, Augustine and Penn State’s Welsh.