Massachusetts Women's Director, Joe Nugent, and Men's Director, Matt Dehney, have been preparing their teams to compete at Nationals in Fargo, ND. This year's team has forty-five (45) athletes competing in the various divisions. Nugent, also the State Travel Director for Massachusetts, said that this year's trip was challenging given higher prices and limited availability of travel options. "We have struggled to pull the travel together, but we are making it work." said Nugent. "Airfare is more expensive and the airlines are more conservative when dealing with larger groups."

On the mat, Dehney like his teams chances. "We have good depth this year and I am expecting that our kids will come come back with a few stops signs." The team includes returning Fargo All-American, Isaac Paulino. The women's side has good depth as well with two returning All-Americans, Jaclyn Dehney and Daniella Nugent. "All of our kids are ready to compete. They want to improve on what they did last year and have been working hard all year for this." said Nugent.

Dehney took the lead in creating a training cycle that took place at WPI, TrueGrit MMA and Harvard University, which included an all-star coaching staff with Christian Monserrat, West Virginia, and Chaz Tucker, Cornell. "We have been really lucky to have a couple of recent college grads who have competed at the highest levels come out to train our teams along with several other very qualified staff to make sure that all of the kids are progressing." said Dehney.