Wrestling 20-21

I don't know if a season is going to happen but ... here's the Class of '24.

I'll write a season preview later but thanks to upprdeck for getting this going. Season starts at the earliest in January so there's time. Before then there may be some international wrestling to write about since Kyle Dake, Yianni Diakomihalis, Nahshon Garrett and Vito Arjujau are all going to be gunning for Team USA in Tokyo ... if we're sending a team to the Olympics. Fun world.

Senior Nationals are October 9-11, and include the following Cornellians (registered):

57kg: Vito Arujau, Frank Perrelli
86kg: Gabe Dean, Max Dean
97kg: Ben Honis

Penfield’s Kropman to wrestle at Cornell.

George64
Penfield’s Kropman to wrestle at Cornell.

his older brother is a former NCAA qualifier who wrestled at Binghamton and Drexel. Don't know if he'd have gotten much mat time at Cornell but happy to see his brother make a better choice! (EDIT: I take it back - at 157 he would have competed very seriously for mat time and may well have been our starter last season.)

Meanwhile, there are a bunch of Cornell folks wrestling freestyle at FloWrestling's America's Cup at 1pm if you subscribe. Vito, Yianni, Max, Nahshon, Ramirez, Foca, Honis, Loew, maybe Gabe.

And some great matchups at the Rokfin/NLWC event on 2/23:

*Yianni Diakomihalis vs Nahshon Garrett

*Zain Retherford vs Nahshon Garrett

*Kyle Snyder vs Gabe Dean

*Bo Nickal vs Gabe Dean

*Vinenzo Joseph vs Kyle Dake

*Jason Nolf vs Kyle Dake

can't bring myself to add a rokfin sub but that's cool

Not that it should cause you to jump on but my impression is that unlike Flo there are no shenanigans with canceling.

i hated watching the eiwa tournament without the ivies. HATED.

Hard to imagine an activity during the Plague more dangerous than wrestling other than roughrider porn.

(Yes, I know, ask Gym Jordan, same thing.)

Without Cornell in the tournament, the EIWA showing was terrible. Lehigh sent 10, but only one was seeded in the top 8 and he failed to live up to seed. The conference only has two AA total. Woof.

On the other hand the wrestling has been pretty great with a lot of upsets and great stories. Fun tournament to watch through tears.

Wrestling olympic team qualifier spor finals

Lets go Honis and Dean!

Both Honis and Gabe Dean won their respective finals and secured their spots at the Olympic team trials

blackwidow
Both Honis and Gabe Dean won their respective finals and secured their spots at the Olympic team trials

Thanks for posting, BW.

The Cornell grads who are qualified for the Olympic Team Trials - April 2 and 3 - are:

57kg: Vito Arujau '22*
65kg: Yianni Diakomihalis '21* and Nahshon Garrett '16
74kg: Kyle Dake '13
86kg: Gabe Dean '17
97kg: Ben Honis '19

They won't all necessarily attend but I expect to see all 6 there.

Cornell-adjacent: Evan Henderson is training in Ithaca with the Cornell / Spartan Combat RTC staff and qualified by winning the 65kg bracket and Scottie Boykin, also training in Ithaca, lost to Honis in the 97kg final and qualified for OTT as well.

We had some other good results in the Last Chance tournament, particularly Chris Foca, who is supposed start attending Cornell in the fall. He nearly made consolation finals and had some great wins including a 10-0 tech over Cornell's own Max Dean. Other Cornellians included current students Jonathan Loew and Hunter Richard, future Big Red Joshua Saunders and Julian Ramirez and alum Frank Perrelli '11. It looked like Hunter Richard hurt his right shoulder pretty badly and Julian Ramirez seemed to really hurt his right wrist. Don't know how bad either injury really was.

The Greco tournament had current or future Cornellians Andrew Berreyesa (3rd at 87kg), Chayse LaJoie (5th at 60kg), Jonathan Fagan, Jack Darrah and Phillip Moomey.

* hard to tell what graduation years are for current Big Red wrestlers because of the Olympic redshirts, COVID school withdrawals and free years / grad eligibility next year due to COVID.

The Olympic trials are being broadcast on NBC Sports and streamed on Peacock starting at ll am TODAY. See the Cornell Athletics website for more details.

Kyle Dake defeats 3 time NCAA champion Jason Nolf 11-0 in 42 seconds to advance to a best of 3 matches tomorrow vs. Jordan Burroughs.
Vito Arajau advanced winning 6-5 to tomorrow's final as well.
Yianni Diakomihalis lost his semi 4-4 based upon tiebreaking criteria.
Gabe Dean went down 4-0 to David Taylor.

Kyle Dake, as expected, ripped through the competition in the 74kg Challenge Tournament. He got a bye to the semifinal because he won gold at Worlds in a non-Olympic weight. He won the semi 10-0 in 1:26 then, as jkahn said, won the final against Jason Nolf in 42 seconds, including an insane powerbomb right off of the opening whistle. To give an idea of how good an opponent Dake just ragdolled, Nolf lost two matches as a freshman to 2x national champion Isaiah Martinez and then (with the exception of a single injury default) didn't lose again in college for three years.

Dake's Finals match against Jordan Burroughs has been hugely anticipated all year. Nobody really expected anyone else to be here. Burroughs beat Dake in the best-of-three finals in 2013, 2015 and 2017 (Dake was injured in 2014 and moved way up in weight to try to win what he thought was an easier weight class in 2016). After 2017, Dake moved to the non-Olympic weight of 79kg and won gold in 2018 and 2019 while Burroughs won bronze both years at 74. COVID cancelled both the trials and the Olympics last year, and because none of the real contenders try for non-Olympic weights in an Olympic year, Dake came back down to 74 again. While Dake got a bye to semis because of his World medal at 79, Burroughs got to go straight to the best of three final where they will finally meet for the first time in 4 years. It's hard to tell how much is real but they really do not seem to like each other. Should be fun but I think Dake finally gets over the top and goes to the Olympics.

Vito Arujau's tournament has been great too. He came in as a very well-respected 3 seed. He opened with a solid 3-2 win over #6 Nate Tomasello that was better than the score looks, since he was up 3-0 until giving up a takedown with five seconds left; he was never close to giving up more points than that. He followed up with a 7-5 win over former World team member and #2 Daton Fix that also wasn't exactly as close as the score suggests, though it almost ended in catastrophe. Arujau led 6-0 before kind of trying to run out the clock without really attempting offense and trying to limit the damage with one step out point at a time. In the end, though, Fix whittled the lead to 6-5 and nearly got in on a shot at the whistle but Vito held it off. Fix challenged but it was pretty clear he was going to be denied. The lost challenge meant a penalty point for Arujau and a final score of 7-5.

There was no defending world medalist at 57kg, so the challenge tournament is the only tournament. Arujau goes straight to the best of three final against 2x Team USA member and 2017 World Silver medalist Thomas Gilman. Gilman is probably the favorite but a lot of people are picking Vito, who keeps getting better.
]
Gabe Dean won his first match against Myles Martin 2-1 in a pretty dull defensive match. In his second match against 2018 World gold medalist David Taylor, Dean kept it closer than almost anyone else does, and really came close to making it interesting late, but he fell 4-0. He's still alive for third place and a place on Team USA but would be more of an injury substitute or training partner.

Yianni Diakomihalis also easily won his first match, 10-0 over Frank Molinaro. In his second match, against former training partner (and also former world team member Jordan Oliver), he took a 3-0 lead and was leading 4-2 late in the second period but he gave up two step out points in the last 20ish seconds to fall into a 4-4 tie, which under tiebreaking criteria was a win for Oliver since he was the last to score. Brutal. He can still compete for third place like Dean.

Cornell actually had two other wrestlers in the tournament: Nahshon Garrett lost his first match 8-2 to Anthony Ashnault and has an insane path to get to third place. Ben Honis lost 9-0 to Hayden Zillmer and also has a very difficult path to third.

Really looking forward to watching Vito and Kyle tomorrow night. Finals start at 7:30pm on either NBCSN or Peacock (which is a pay service but I got the 7-day free trial to watch this.)

ugarte -- thank you for the thorough summary of Friday's matches. I streamed the tournament but didn't listen to any commentary so it is nice to put the results in context.

Morning so far:

Nahshon Garrett got beat pretty solidly and is out.

Ben Honis won a huge 11-10 match against budding superstar AJ Ferrari (who I find very annoying but he is an incredible wrestler) coming off a national championship as a freshman. He followed with a 6-2 loss to veteran Ty Walz and is out.

Yianni Diakomihalis came back from his crushing loss yesterday to win by tech fall 14-4 over Mitch McKee and will face Nick Lee for third after Lee knocked Zain Retherford out of the tournament.

Gabe Dean elected not to continue in the consolation bracket.

Not surprising that Dean and Yianni have different takes on third place: Dean was wrestling for the Olympics only, and is generally more focused on coaching - he is an assistant at Cornell - whereas Yianni has a long career on the mat ahead of him and would benefit from third place and a spot on Team USA which comes with an NCAA-exempt stipend and training support.

In a real stunner, Nick Lee was on fire. Yianni went down early and tried to come back but ultimately couldn't. Lost 16-8 in a real disappointment that he was wearing in his body language since the whistle blew yesterday, even while he was beating McKee.

Still have Vito and Kyle going tonight for a trip to Tokyo.

Dake wins 3-0 and 3-2... on to Tokyo.

Vito lost his first match by fall .. 2nd still upcoming.

jkahn
Dake wins 3-0 and 3-2... on to Tokyo.

Vito lost his first match by fall .. 2nd still upcoming.

Update: Vito loses 2nd match 2-2 on tiebreaker criteria. Great effort though.

And, of course, Kyle Dake is amazing.

I'll let the experts on this forum elaborate on the finer points of the matches.

just crazy defense by Dake.

I honestly didn't get to see Dake or Arujau's first matches - dinner time! - and haven't tracked them down yet. Dake won his first 3-0 and Vito lost his by pin near the end of the second period. Announcers said that Vito jumped out to an early lead but Gilman had overtaken him before the fall.

In the second matches, our guys were on opposite sides of a mirror. Dake took a 3-0 lead by forcing Burroughs out once and then getting a clean takedown. As time ticked off in the second period, he let himself get hit with a one-point inaction penalty and then conceded a step out for a second point but he was able to dance away the rest of the clock for a 3-2 victory and a 2-0 win in the series.

Vito, on the other hand, conceded a takedown in the first period and Gilman played defense the rest of the way, conceding a pair of step-outs late in the second period, but his two-point takedown is worth more in tiebreaker criteria than Vito's two one-point step-outs, leading to a 2-2 win for Gilman. Vito nearly got a takedown before the whistle for a come-from-behind win to force a rubber match but Gilman snaked his leg free, leaving Vito despondent on the mat. He does qualify for Team USA and the benefits that come from it, and he's the alternate should Gilman be injured in training before Tokyo.

OK, watched Arujau-Gilman match one. Vito scored first on a nice ankle pick to get Gilman in a vulnerable position. Gilman defended by keeping his knees off the mat in a quad-pod - just toes and hands on the mat - but Arujau was able to lift the legs and use a leg lace to twist Gilman over to expose his back to make the takedown a 4 point move. After that it was all Gilman. He forced Vito off the mat three times to make it 4-3. Then, he was pushing Vito back again and it looked like Vito was maybe trying to bait him and swing Gilman around so he went out first but Gilman turned it into a throw and planted Vito on his back to make it a 7-4 lead. In the second period, Gilman mostly played defense but with time winding down he caught Vito and planted him again and I don't think Vito fought the fall particularly hard because the match was effectively over with the throw.

And Dake-Burroughs match one. Dake got an early step-out, and that was it for the first round scoring. Cautious, defensive positioning for both wrestlers. In round 2, Burroughs fired off a signature leg attack but Dake sprawled back, putting pressure on Burroughs from above and got his hands clasped between Burroughs legs in an attempt to do a crotch-lift and expose Burroughs' back. He didn't get the lift but it did break Burroughs' grip, so Dake got behind for 2. He then attempted the crotch-lift again, but the action went out of bounds for a stalemate. 3-0 Dake. Burroughs tried it again with about 20 seconds left but Dake defended the same way, though he didn't try to score since he was content to let the clock run down, which it did. After the restart with about 11 seconds, Dake ran away until time expired for the W. Really nice win.

Big news in the wake of OTT is that Max Dean is probably transferring to Michigan and Coach Gabe going with him.

ugarte
Big news in the wake of OTT is that Max Dean is probably transferring to Michigan and Coach Gabe going with him.

according to coach koll it has to do with a fear that the ivies are going to keep canceling sports and cornell's rule requiring student vaccinations for the fall. yikes.

ugarte

ugarte
Big news in the wake of OTT is that Max Dean is probably transferring to Michigan and Coach Gabe going with him.

according to coach koll it has to do with a fear that the ivies are going to keep canceling sports and cornell's rule requiring student vaccinations for the fall. yikes.

Is he transferring as a graduate transfer? This is a big loss.

blackwidow

ugarte

ugarte
Big news in the wake of OTT is that Max Dean is probably transferring to Michigan and Coach Gabe going with him.

according to coach koll it has to do with a fear that the ivies are going to keep canceling sports and cornell's rule requiring student vaccinations for the fall. yikes.

Is he transferring as a graduate transfer? This is a big loss.

i don't think he is. regular transfer. it is a big loss symbolically. unclear how big a loss it will be on the mat. not because he isn't a pretty clear AA pick and title contender but because Chris Foca may already be better than he is. Foca beat him 10-0 at the OTT qualifier and looked great doing it. Freestyle rules and college rules may favor Foca but it if Foca was going to wrestle at 184 instead of 174 things might have gotten interesting.

ugarte

blackwidow

ugarte

ugarte
Big news in the wake of OTT is that Max Dean is probably transferring to Michigan and Coach Gabe going with him.

according to coach koll it has to do with a fear that the ivies are going to keep canceling sports and cornell's rule requiring student vaccinations for the fall. yikes.

Is he transferring as a graduate transfer? This is a big loss.

i don't think he is. regular transfer. it is a big loss symbolically. unclear how big a loss it will be on the mat. not because he isn't a pretty clear AA pick and title contender but because Chris Foca may already be better than he is. Foca beat him 10-0 at the OTT qualifier and looked great doing it. Freestyle rules and college rules may favor Foca but it if Foca was going to wrestle at 184 instead of 174 things might have gotten interesting.

I have a feeling losing to Foster in the 2019 final was a big confidence hit. (Not that he was necessarily expected to win, it's just that i imagine it's hard to get over a loss like that) im more worried about Gabe Dean not being a recruiter. I thought he was doing a really great job bringing young talents in.

The Junior and Senior World team qualification (not Olympics - the 2021 worlds are still happening...) is going on and Cornell has a couple of athletes and recruits wrestling. Today is Junior Greco and so far...

60kg: Phillip Moomey, a Junior and a backup for us, made it to the finals where he lost to Nick Bouzakis. Bouzakis is a high school junior but one of the elite recruits in his class.


63 kg: Chayse LaJoie, a rising frosh, blazed through the tournament, winning the best of three finals with a pair of tech falls 8-0, 10-0 and will be the Team USA representative at 2021 Junior Worlds in Ufa, a mere 20-hour drive east of Moscow.

82kg: Jonathon Fagen, a junior and an upper-weights backup, is in the finals and won the first match in the best of 3. Loses the second 9-0 in ~30 seconds... third coming... and Fagen dominates, 6-0 and will be the Team USA representative. He also celebrated with a parody of AJ Ferrari, so I like that kid.

87kg: Jack Darrah, a rising frosh, lost a heartbreaker in the semifinals, giving up a last second takedown, and finished in 5th.

Nobody on the Cornell radar made it to the finals at Junior Freestyle. We have 3 wrestling for third (Ramirez (74kg), Foca (86kg) and Fernandes (125kg)), one for fifth (Craft (79kg)) and two 7th place finishers (Saunders (65kg) and Hatcher (86kg)).

Big disappointment to see Saunders finish so low. Moderate disappointment that Foca and Fernandes aren't in the final.

ugarte
Nobody on the Cornell radar made it to the finals at Junior Freestyle. We have 3 wrestling for third (Ramirez (74kg), Foca (86kg) and Fernandes (125kg)), one for fifth (Craft (79kg)) and two 7th place finishers (Saunders (65kg) and Hatcher (86kg)).

Big disappointment to see Saunders finish so low. Moderate disappointment that Foca and Fernandes aren't in the final.

Foca was the only wrestler to win his medal match, so we end up with a third, two fourths, a sixth and two sevenths.

[cornellbigred.com]

Ugarte already reported the win, bug hey, it's an article.

Former Cornell NCAA finalist Max Dean transfers to Penn State.

The rich get richer as they say. Just like Alabama football, Penn State wrestling is the dominant force in the sport and they landed a high profile transfer for the upcoming season.

Former Cornell star Max Dean is transferring and becoming a Nittany Lion. The former Big Red wrestler was a two-time All-American at Cornell, becoming an NCAA finalist in 2019.

[247sports.com]

Ken711
Former Cornell NCAA finalist Max Dean transfers to Penn State.

The rich get richer as they say. Just like Alabama football, Penn State wrestling is the dominant force in the sport and they landed a high profile transfer for the upcoming season.

Former Cornell star Max Dean is transferring and becoming a Nittany Lion. The former Big Red wrestler was a two-time All-American at Cornell, becoming an NCAA finalist in 2019.

[247sports.com]

going to be a challenge to get into that lineup too. 184 (Brooks) and 197 (Beard) are both returning AAs and 184 was a national champ with 3 years of eligibility left.

ugarte

Ken711
Former Cornell NCAA finalist Max Dean transfers to Penn State.

The rich get richer as they say. Just like Alabama football, Penn State wrestling is the dominant force in the sport and they landed a high profile transfer for the upcoming season.

Former Cornell star Max Dean is transferring and becoming a Nittany Lion. The former Big Red wrestler was a two-time All-American at Cornell, becoming an NCAA finalist in 2019.

[247sports.com]

going to be a challenge to get into that lineup too. 184 (Brooks) and 197 (Beard) are both returning AAs and 184 was a national champ with 3 years of eligibility left.

Some wrestlers have been known to relish challenge.

Rob Koll to Stanford...

And "Cornell Tabs Mike Grey As Rob Koll's Replacement
Cornell didn’t look long or far to find Rob Koll’s successor, replacing their longtime leader with his top understudy"

[www.flowrestling.org]

Wow! Talk about a Saturday night news dump....

semsox
Wow! Talk about a Saturday night news dump....

wrestling boards have been taking about it since it leaked that he interviewed. from what I can tell, he's not taking any wrestlers with him and Grey is the best possible replacement, short and long term.

Koll did an amazing job with the Cornell program. All we can do is thank him and wish him luck and hope that Grey can come close to filling his shoes.

dbilmes
Koll did an amazing job with the Cornell program. All we can do is thank him and wish him luck and hope that Grey can come close to filling his shoes.

Agreed.

But I'm getting tired of this. I watched the UVA/UNC lacrosse match and couldn't help but think: How many former Ivy lacrosse coaches are now coaching in the ACC or B1G?

In the big money sports, mainly football and basketball, the Ivies never will be able to compete with the "big-time" conferences, nor should we. But in low-revenue sports, where Ivies regularly make credible runs at NC's, we should be more than a stepping-stone conference.

Canceling a year of sports while the rest of the country played is not going to help retaining coaches

Swampy

dbilmes
Koll did an amazing job with the Cornell program. All we can do is thank him and wish him luck and hope that Grey can come close to filling his shoes.

Agreed.

But I'm getting tired of this. I watched the UVA/UNC lacrosse match and couldn't help but think: How many former Ivy lacrosse coaches are now coaching in the ACC or B1G?

In the big money sports, mainly football and basketball, the Ivies never will be able to compete with the "big-time" conferences, nor should we. But in low-revenue sports, where Ivies regularly make credible runs at NC's, we should be more than a stepping-stone conference.

30 years is a hell of a long time to spend at a stepping stone. People were wondering when Koll was going to *retire* and if his staying on was costing us assistants who could one day take over the program (former Cornellians are the head coaches at Drexel, South Dakota State and Northern Colorado, with assistants around the country as well). Grey was being developed for this. That he's going west for what I assume is a massive payday in a city with better weather not to mention the luxury of scholarships and (despite what the top line admissions numbers are) more flexible admissions for athletes than Cornell's is no surprise.

Arujau and Dake take Gold at Pan-Am Championships.

George64
Arujau and Dake take Gold at Pan-Am Championships.

USA took gold in all 10 weights in men's freestyle and all but one in women's. At most weights the American didn't surrender a single point. Cuba and Venezuela were sorely missed in the competition.

underskill
Canceling a year of sports while the rest of the country played is not going to help retaining coaches

If you wrote this in Latin it would be the ideal motto for the race to the bottom.

Fuck is wrong with people?

i dont think Covid had much of anything to do with why this happened.

upprdeck
i dont think Covid had much of anything to do with why this happened.

then you haven't listened to his interviews

COVID has everything to do with it. Like many other coaches at Cornell, Koll did not feel he got much support from the University administration. The Finger Lakes Wrestling Club continued to practice and to a limited extent compete without one positive COVID test. The wrestlers on leave of absence did the same thing with the same degree of safety. Right or wrong -- I doubt we will ever have consensus as to whether the Ivy presidents were overly protective -- the Ivy League decision to shut down athletic competition and severely limit practice activity will have a lasting negative impact on competition within the League.

George64
Arujau and Dake take Gold at Pan-Am Championships.

A very short video of Kyle at Pan-Am Championships.