Sean Arbaut/MSU athletics Minot State wrestler Dean Arevalo celebrates after winning a match earlier this season inside the MSU Dome.

Resting in his hotel room, Dean Arevalo was disturbed by what he first thought was a cruel prank.

“My teammates were blowing up my phone on Snapchat about the NCAA canceling,” Arevalo said. “I was getting upset like, ‘I don’t have time for this, guys. Take this stuff somewhere else. I’m trying to focus on practice and take this seriously.’ I was kind of blowing it off because I couldn’t see the NCAA canceling.”

Arevalo got out of bed and asked his training partner, Oscar Nellis, about the cryptic messages he was receiving. Nellis was also unaware.

“(Nellis) was like, ‘Don’t stress about that Dean, they aren’t going to cancel the meet. You need to get ready for practice,'” Arevalo recalled. “I told him I wanted to talk with (head coach) Evan Forde real quick to see what is going on. I walked out of my room, and it was almost like a movie.”

Perplexed wrestlers from nearby rooms were also venturing into the hallway.

“My heart dropped,” Arevalo said.

Arevalo walked over to Forde’s room and found his coach in tears.

“He was having a hard time, and crying some,” Arevalo said. “I knew it was over right then and there.”

On the cusp of wrestling the biggest match of his storybook four-year career with Minot State, Arevalo was told his senior season was over.

The NCAA Division II wrestling championships in Sioux Falls, S.D., were canceled. The NCAA publicly released a statement on Twitter at 3:16 p.m. Thursday, March 12, that sent shock waves throughout the country.

“Today, NCAA President Mark Emmert and the Board of Governors canceled the Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, as well as all remaining winter and spring NCAA championships,” the statement continued. “This decision is based on the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to the spread of the pandemic, and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities.”

No one could have predicted Arevalo’s collegiate journey would have ended like this. Completely out of his control.

Humble beginnings

Arevalo, a native of Riverside, Calif., was thrown into the fire when he first arrived in Minot. The wide-eyed freshman stepped in right away and filled an open gap in the Beavers’ lineup.

“We were forfeiting 125 and 133 the first season I was here,” Forde said. “So, we were pretty desperate for lightweights. We got a group of guys in, and Dean was one of them. Part of the reason his record wasn’t so great was that we had to use him up at 133, and he was way too small for the weight class. He wasn’t quite ready for this level yet. He is the type of guy that a redshirt would have really benefited him, but we needed him at the time.”

Outmatched and undersized in a majority of his matches as a true freshman during the 2016-17 campaign, Arevalo struggled. Losses piled up at an alarming rate.

“I remember after a U-Mary dual — I got teched or whatever — and I was in the locker room,” Arevalo said. “I started thinking to myself like, ‘Man, I don’t remember what it’s like to win anymore. Maybe this isn’t for me. I’m trying everything I can. It’s just not working.’ I would always tell Forde that this isn’t me. I’m going to figure this out.”

Arevalo posted a demoralizing 2-17 record with only six takedowns in his debut season with the Beavers.

Instead of walking away from the sport, Arevalo went to work.

“When I came back from the summer into the Minot State wrestling room for my sophomore year, that’s when everything was different,” Arevalo said. “I was starting to beat everyone in the room. I don’t remember an exact change. I just remember going home and just wrestling.”

Arevalo was still wrestling up at 133 at the time, but he had his sights set on 125 — a weight class occupied by Michael Rangel.

“I told myself, ‘I’m going to get what I want,'” Arevalo said. “If I want 125, then I’m going to come at him until he breaks. I’m going for it.”

Rangel, in Arevalo’s words, “couldn’t handle the pressure.” Arevalo won his place in the starting lineup at his preferred weight of 125.

The wins followed. Arevalo went 16-11 in his sophomore season and put together another winning campaign of 17-14 as a junior. An 18th victory, however, would have sent Arevalo to the NCAA Division II National Tournament for the first time.

Cole Jones crushed Arevalo’s dream of reaching nationals by beating him twice at the NCAA Super Regional V in 2019. Jones, from Minnesota State Moorhead, narrowly won in the quarterfinals 6-5 and then won the rematch 8-4 in a decisive third-place match, which decided who advanced to nationals.

More fuel was added to the fire.

Sensational senior season cut short

Arevalo’s revenge tour was ruthless. The locked-in senior went undefeated against NSIC opposition. He finished the regular season with a 20-2 overall record.

Three more wins at the NCAA Super Regional V, including a 7-5 sudden victory in overtime over St. Cloud State’s Brandon Betancourt in the semifinals, submitted Arevalo’s legacy from being a freshman walkover to becoming a national tournament qualifier.

“It felt really good qualifying — punching my ticket,” Arevalo said in MSU’s weekly press conference before nationals. “But, I let that ride on my emotions in the finals at regionals, and I took a loss. I needed that loss because now I’m really hungry. I’m pissed. When I go to nationals, I’m looking to do some damage.”

Less than 24 hours before unseeded Arevalo (23-3) was scheduled to face No. 4-seeded Ana Abduljelil (15-7) from the University of Indianapolis in the opening round of the NCAA Division II National Tournament, everything was called off.

Arevalo didn’t get a chance to unleash his pent-up fury once again.

Well, at least not in an official national tournament match.

“My trainer said, ‘How about we go get one last match in and end your career on the NCAA mat?'” Arevalo said. “And, as hard as it was, I said yes. I wanted to do that.”

Arevalo and his crew rushed over to the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center. Much to their dismay, the staff was already closing up the venue.

“Our coaches and my trainer literally stood on one of the mats to almost protest — don’t let them roll up this mat until I could get one match in,” Arevalo said. “I was willing to wrestle any 125-pounder from my bracket, but none of them wanted to. So my partner, being the good guy he is, was willing to wrestle the match with me.”

Arevalo won by a major decision over Nellis. But, the result of the impromptu exhibition match felt insignificant in the moment.

“Although I beat him real bad, my mind was all over the place,” Arevalo said. “I kept looking up at the stands and kept trying to picture people being there — my parents. I was trying to imagine how it would have felt.”

After Arevalo’s arm was raised for the final time, the mat was rolled up.

“This was one of the most important moments of my life,” Arevalo said. “I put too much into this without walking out as an All-American or even an NCAA champion. To have it canceled was heartbreaking… I earned this and did the work. I felt all the heartbreak I went through last year. I did it all, and I didn’t even get to experience this. I never will.”

Arevalo has future aspirations to be a police officer, but his desire to stay around wrestling burns intensely after what happened this past weekend.

“I can’t leave this sport. I can’t walk away,” Arevalo said. “Even if I become a cop, I will have to coach somehow. This could very well make me want to coach for the rest of my life. I’m going to be coaching as a graduate assistant next year, but maybe this pushes me to try to compete in the U.S. Open or other tournaments so that I can achieve something greater. Right now, I don’t want it to end, knowing it ended like this.”

Alex Eisen covers Minot State athletics, the Minot Minotauros and high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @AEisen13.