Seniors Pat Dowty, 133 pounds, and Matt Veach, 165 pounds, will travel to St. Louis over spring break for the NCAA wrestling championships.

Junior Pete Ziminski is the first alternate for the NCAA West Regional, which means if any of the qualifiers from that region can’t wrestle, he will take their qualifying spot. The deadline for qualifiers confirmation is Monday, so Ziminski still could get a call to compete in the tournament at heavyweight.

Head coach Ralph McCausland is happy about the close proximity of the tournament.

“We can stay home and don’t need to travel too far,” McCausland said. “It’s a good situation for us and for friends and families coming.”

The tournament will kickoff with an opening celebration on Wednesday at Union Station. The first session of wrestling starts the next morning at 11 at the Savvis Center. There will also be a session at 6:30 that evening. There will be sessions at the same times on Friday and the last session before finals start at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Before the final session of wrestling at 5:30 Saturday, there will be a grand march of All-Americans who will compete that day.

Dowty (19-8) will be competing in his third straight NCAA championship and Veach (28-5) is making his first trip to the tournament. In his first attempt at the tournament, Dowty lost his first match of the tournament to Phil Mansueto of Cleveland State 6-2. In wrestle backs he pulled off a last minute pin to win, but lost in a 15-9 in his final match. Junior year, Dowty got revenge, on then No. 11 ranked, Mansueto. He beat the senior 7-6 in the first round. In the next round, Dowty went up against Northern Iowa’s Pat Garcia, who he wrestled against several more times in his career. In a rematch of the NCAA West Regional Championship, Garcia came out on top again, 5-4. In his consolation match Dowty lost Tom Clumm, a freshman from Wisconsin.

Neither of the wrestlers know yet who they will face in the first round. The Division I Wrestling Committee selects 22 coaches who will meet Monday to make seedings for the tournament, assistant coach Antonio Vaughn said. Seeding’s can be found online at NCAA.org after Mondays meeting.