Wrestling 2023-24

The new roster is up, so a new season thread has arrived. I'm not ready to do a season preview yet but there is news.

Meyer Shapiro* '27 won his second age-group world title today, taking gold at the U20 tournament in Amman.** In 2021, he was the world U17 champ, which is why he was considered the top recruit in this year's freshman class. He spent his senior year of high school in Ithaca training with the greyshirts at Spartan Combat RTC.

We also have two Cornellians going for gold at Senior worlds in Bucharest a month from now: Kyle Dake '13 at 74kg and Vito Arujau '24 at 57kg. Alas, Yianni D. '23 was upset at Final X and isn't returning to Worlds unless Nick Lee gets hurt. He is an assistant coach for us, though, and was with Shapiro in Amman along with Mike Grey.

Season preview soonish, but of course anyone who wants to write their thoughts doesn't need my permission to go ahead. I'm looking forward to the season for sure: Returning All-Americans in Vito, Chris Foca, Jonathan Loew ('22) and Jacob Cardenas plus three R12 guys (Brett Ungar, Julian Ramirez (2x) and Lewis Fernandes ('22)) plus top-10 Vince Cornella and frosh Meyer Shapiro. Only real question marks are the starter at 149/157 that isn't Shapiro and whether Loew and Fernandes are healthy.

* Pronounced ShaPYro.
**This tournament was originally scheduled for Poland, but they wouldn't grant visas to Russian or Belarussian athletes (who are officially wrestling as independents).

anyone catch the story of sammy sasso being shot this weekend?

upprdeck
anyone catch the story of sammy sasso being shot this weekend?

yeah apparently shot in the stomach during a stickup at a gas station but i don't know if the main target was him, as an individual, or the gas station. stable condition, might even wrestle again, but i don't think tOSU is going to see him. horrible news.

(2x NCAA finalist at Ohio State and was going to be the USA rep at 70kg for U23 worlds, for those who don't know who sasso is)

ugarte

upprdeck
anyone catch the story of sammy sasso being shot this weekend?

yeah apparently shot in the stomach during a stickup at a gas station but i don't know if the main target was him, as an individual, or the gas station. stable condition, might even wrestle again, but i don't think tOSU is going to see him. horrible news.

(2x NCAA finalist at Ohio State and was going to be the USA rep at 70kg for U23 worlds, for those who don't know who sasso is)

Carjacking. [www.dispatch.com]

David Harding

ugarte

upprdeck
anyone catch the story of sammy sasso being shot this weekend?

yeah apparently shot in the stomach during a stickup at a gas station but i don't know if the main target was him, as an individual, or the gas station. stable condition, might even wrestle again, but i don't think tOSU is going to see him. horrible news.

(2x NCAA finalist at Ohio State and was going to be the USA rep at 70kg for U23 worlds, for those who don't know who sasso is)

Carjacking. [www.dispatch.com]

Trying to run over a rat near an alley? The story seems a bit sketchy.

scoop85

David Harding

ugarte

upprdeck
anyone catch the story of sammy sasso being shot this weekend?

yeah apparently shot in the stomach during a stickup at a gas station but i don't know if the main target was him, as an individual, or the gas station. stable condition, might even wrestle again, but i don't think tOSU is going to see him. horrible news.

(2x NCAA finalist at Ohio State and was going to be the USA rep at 70kg for U23 worlds, for those who don't know who sasso is)

Carjacking. [www.dispatch.com]

Trying to run over a rat near an alley? The story seems a bit sketchy.

yeah idk no comment lol

David Harding

ugarte

upprdeck
anyone catch the story of sammy sasso being shot this weekend?

yeah apparently shot in the stomach during a stickup at a gas station but i don't know if the main target was him, as an individual, or the gas station. stable condition, might even wrestle again, but i don't think tOSU is going to see him. horrible news.

(2x NCAA finalist at Ohio State and was going to be the USA rep at 70kg for U23 worlds, for those who don't know who sasso is)

Carjacking. [www.dispatch.com]

His family has posted a gofundme - the injury is worse than the original rumors/reports. Nerve damage, will have to rehab to be able to walk again.

Wrestling media has started posting preseason Rankings. I'll probably write more later today, and fill in the WIN info when it comes in, but the team is getting an incredible amount of early respect. Flo has 5 projected AAs (top 8) and 9 ranked for NCAA qualifiers; Intermat has 5 projected AA with 8 ranked. Unstated is that Shapiro, who just took Gold at Junior Worlds and went 15-0 last year in college matches as a high school senior, has a ranking based entirely on being a frosh who wrestled last year at 149. I think he's generally considered a title contender right out of the box. Should be a fun year if everyone stays healthy.

		WIN	Flo	Intermat   WrestleStat (ELO)
125: Ungar 	xx	 7	10          9	
133: Arujau	xx	 1	 1          1
141: Cornella	xx	11	14         18
149: ???	xx	NR	NR         ??
157: Shapiro	xx	24	NR        206
165: Ramirez	xx	 7	 7          5
174: Foca	xx	 2	 2          2
184: Loew	xx	16	 8         10
197: Cardenas	xx	 7	 6          9
285: Fernandes	xx	11	11         16
TEAM DUAL:	xx	xx	 2          8
TEAM NCAA:	xx	 5	 4          8

I don't know who is going to start at 149; Wrestlestat predicts Handlovic (who started most of last year) but Josh Saunders is a strong possibility as well. Saunders' pre-college record suggests he'd have a higher ceiling; his college performance, less so. Colton Yapoujian may also be in the mix but he's been plagued with injuries for the last two years and 149 would be a tough, maybe impossible, cut; he was wrestling at 157 as a greyshirt in 2018.

Rob Koll leaves Stanford for UNC.

CAS
Rob Koll leaves Stanford for UNC.

back to his alma mater

Coming up 9/16-24 are the Senior World Championships with two three Cornell representatives. I've talked about Vito Arujau '24 (61kg, unseeded) and Kyle Dake '13 (74kg, 2 seed) but to my surprise, another Big Red alum is going to be in Belgrade.

Ben Honis '19 will be wrestling for Italy at 97kg and I guess he's been competing in all the ranking events because he's seeded #5. Team Italy has another Cornell connection, as Brian Realbuto's little brother, Colin, will also be wrestling for Italy. Colin started at Brown and will be a senior at Northern Iowa this year. He isn't as talented as Brian was, but his knee did not get wrecked his junior year. As far as I can tell, Brian left his shoes on the mat after graduation.

If any school has the money to support any and all athletic teams, it would be Stanford. Whether Koll stayed at Stanford or rejoined the Tar Heels, he's in the ACC. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, these Stanford sports go to the ACC: Football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, women’s lacrosse, wrestling, women’s gymnastics, cross country, golf, tennis, track & field, swimming and diving, and women’s rowing.


[www.flowrestling.org]

Flo Wrestling
Rob Koll’s image hangs over the mats inside the North Carolina wrestling room.

It was Chapel Hill where Koll made his first major impact on college wrestling. He won an NCAA title for the Tar Heels in 1988. He became the school’s first four-time All-American. Even as he's coached elsewhere, Koll has been a longtime supporter of the North Carolina program.

Now he’s taking another title with the Tar Heels — North Carolina head coach.

Koll is headed back to his alma mater to lead the Tar Heel program, the school announced.

After turning Cornell into a perennial contender during his 28-year stay in Ithaca, Koll spent the past two seasons at Stanford, where he was replenishing a roster with high-level recruiting classes. There were hints, however, that he wasn’t fully enchanted with Stanford.

Koll flew to Oklahoma in the spring to check out what the Sooners had to offer when their head coaching position was vacant. He ultimately opted to stay at Stanford.

But North Carolina offered something that no other program could — the allure of an alma mater, which is also what created a vacancy in Chapel Hill.

Former North Carolina coach Coleman Scott departed in mid-August to go back to Oklahoma State, where he, too, was a four-time All-American and NCAA champion. Scott spent eight seasons leading the Tar Heels, highlighted by a 12th-place finish in March at the NCAA Championships — the highest finish for North Carolina in 28 years.

Two-time NCAA champion Austin O’Connor accounted for half of the Tar Heels’ 42 points at the national tournament in March during his final appearance in a North Carolina singlet. But Koll inherits a roster with two returning All-Americans — 141-pounder Lachlan McNeil and 184-pounder Gavin Kane.

billhoward
If any school has the money to support any and all athletic teams, it would be Stanford. Whether Koll stayed at Stanford or rejoined the Tar Heels, he's in the ACC. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, these Stanford sports go to the ACC: Football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, women’s lacrosse, wrestling, women’s gymnastics, cross country, golf, tennis, track & field, swimming and diving, and women’s rowing.

If I had to bet, Stanford's men's lacrosse will not be far behind. They're currently a club team, but with a professional web site and 38 team members! There's lots of talent on the West Coast, and I think the only DI ACC team there will be able to attract some very good players.

Of course, there's travel expenses & Title IX. But this is nothing a bit of $$$$ can't fix.

Swampy

billhoward
If any school has the money to support any and all athletic teams, it would be Stanford. Whether Koll stayed at Stanford or rejoined the Tar Heels, he's in the ACC. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, these Stanford sports go to the ACC: Football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, women’s lacrosse, wrestling, women’s gymnastics, cross country, golf, tennis, track & field, swimming and diving, and women’s rowing.

If I had to bet, Stanford's men's lacrosse will not be far behind. They're currently a club team, but with a professional web site and 38 team members! There's lots of talent on the West Coast, and I think the only DI ACC team there will be able to attract some very good players.

Of course, there's travel expenses & Title IX. But this is nothing a bit of $$$$ can't fix.

It was only a few years ago that Stanford cut like a dozen varsity teams, then brought them back after a bunch of fundraising. They don’t get a full share of the ACC money for a decade, so I’d be surprised if they’re adding many sports off the bat.

Weder
It was only a few years ago that Stanford cut like a dozen varsity teams, then brought them back after a bunch of fundraising. They don’t get a full share of the ACC money for a decade, so I’d be surprised if they’re adding many sports off the bat.

And a LOT of pushback from alumni of those sports plus parents of then-current players. Some of quote minor sports such as rowing or squash send a lot of alumni on to Wall Street or Sand Hill Road.

See the 2020 story on affluent, college-obsessed, sports-mad parents in The Atlantic, since disavowed and sort of retracted but there is still a PDF of the original story. IMO, there were factual inaccuracies and author Ruth Shalit Barrett turned out to be closer to the story than a reporter-analyst should be. What can't be discredited is the obsession affluent parents have in getting their kids into first class colleges via athletic prowess.

From the story about how Connecticut gold coast parents talked about a plan to endow a $20 million program to start Stanford varsity lacrosse, and also about their misgivings when their kids, some of them, were not good enough to make the lacrosse teams at top academic schools:

Ruth Shalit Barrett
Before the pandemic, determined lacrosse families from New Canaan, Greenwich, and Darien had put their heads together to try to address the dearth of college-lacrosse spots, with a twist on Sharadin’s approach to water polo. • eir inspiration: the JetBlue founder and New Canaan resident David Neeleman, whose $15.6 million donation helped establish a Division I lacrosse team at the University of Utah—his son Seth is a star defender and team captain.
“We’ve been looking into what is the ticket price to start a men’s [varsity lacrosse] program” at Stanford, one parent told me. “We could create lacrosse at Stanford with $20 million. If we could just and $20 million, we could make this work.”
One Greenwich parent told me she believes that, far from being a glide path to the Ivies, lacrosse had actually hurt her older son’s college prospects. As team captain and a straight-A student with stellar test scores, he would have been a credible applicant to NYU or Columbia— but these schools lack varsity-lacrosse programs, and he’d fallen in love with his sport. “There were eight or 10 strong academic schools we couldn’t even look at, because they didn’t have varsity lacrosse,” she said. Her kid just completed his freshman year at a not-so-fancy college in the South, and, according to his mom, he’s happy enough. But she feels bitter, and wonders if her younger boy should quit club lacrosse.
“The guys who get recruited to the Ivies—it turns out these guys are beasts,” she said. “I saw them at showcases. They were like stallions.” [But: Gavin Adler, 5-8, 180--ed.]
She and her husband feel hoodwinked by the directors of her son’s club-lacrosse program, which happily stoked her fantasies while stockpiling her money: $10,000 a year for 11 years.
“They were talking Notre Dame for him,” she said. “Our eyes were glistening … We went to 16 showcases last year. I can’t believe the money we spent to see our son rejected 16 times.”

Gossipy but fun: The author was accused of plagiarism while writing for the New Republican in the 1990s. But, The Atlantic said in a editors' note after the 2020 sports article, “We decided to assign Barrett this freelance story in part because more than two decades separated her from her journalistic malpractice at The New Republic and because in recent years her work has appeared in reputable magazines.”

PDF the 2020 article which The Atlantic to its credit kept alive: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/[cdn.theatlantic.com]

billhoward

Gossipy but fun: The author was accused of plagiarism while writing for the New Republican in the 1990s. But, The Atlantic said in a editors' note after the 2020 sports article, “We decided to assign Barrett this freelance story in part because more than two decades separated her from her journalistic malpractice at The New Republic and because in recent years her work has appeared in reputable magazines.”

PDF the 2020 article which The Atlantic to its credit kept alive: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/[cdn.theatlantic.com]

This story was plagued by the same hyperbolic bullshit that ruined her career the first time around.

What did you think about the article overall? Despite the factual issues (no parent in Gold Coast Connecticut built an Olympic-size hockey rink in the back yard) and her apparent personal involvement with some of the story's subjects ... did you feel it gave a general sense of how some affluent parents, the ones Trotsky would have strung up, went way overboard defining their kids lives by their athletics as a springboard to a good college?

I subscribe to the undecided-jurors legal theory that where there's smoke, there's fire.

billhoward
What did you think about the article overall? Despite the factual issues (no parent in Gold Coast Connecticut built an Olympic-size hockey rink in the back yard) and her apparent personal involvement with some of the story's subjects ... did you feel it gave a general sense of how some affluent parents, the ones Trotsky would have strung up, went way overboard defining their kids lives by their athletics as a springboard to a good college?

I subscribe to the undecided-jurors legal theory that where there's smoke, there's fire.

I thought it was too good to be true, written to appeal to the preexisting prejudices of the readership, which is basically the Ruth Shalit/Stephen Glass stock in trade. Yes, I think there is pressure to get your kid a lot of extracurriculars. Yes, I think a lot of elite college admissions are a gamified scam. This has been true for decades. There was a decent teen romcom about it in 1989. It was truthy in a way you didn't need a Ruth Shalit article to already know.

ugarte
Coming up 9/16-24 are the Senior World Championships with two three Cornell representatives. I've talked about Vito Arujau '24 (61kg, unseeded) and Kyle Dake '13 (74kg, 2 seed) but to my surprise, another Big Red alum is going to be in Belgrade.

Ben Honis '19 will be wrestling for Italy at 97kg and I guess he's been competing in all the ranking events because he's seeded #5. Team Italy has another Cornell connection, as Brian Realbuto's little brother, Colin, will also be wrestling for Italy. Colin started at Brown and will be a senior at Northern Iowa this year. He isn't as talented as Brian was, but his knee did not get wrecked his junior year. As far as I can tell, Brian left his shoes on the mat after graduation.

On day 1, Vito rolled into the finals with three tech falls among his four wins. In the final he has Russian Abasgadzhi Magomedov, the 2021 World Champ. Great start for the USA. Three of our four wrestlers are in the finals and the fourth will wrestle for bronze.

ugarte

ugarte
Coming up 9/16-24 are the Senior World Championships with two three Cornell representatives. I've talked about Vito Arujau '24 (61kg, unseeded) and Kyle Dake '13 (74kg, 2 seed) but to my surprise, another Big Red alum is going to be in Belgrade.

Ben Honis '19 will be wrestling for Italy at 97kg and I guess he's been competing in all the ranking events because he's seeded #5. Team Italy has another Cornell connection, as Brian Realbuto's little brother, Colin, will also be wrestling for Italy. Colin started at Brown and will be a senior at Northern Iowa this year. He isn't as talented as Brian was, but his knee did not get wrecked his junior year. As far as I can tell, Brian left his shoes on the mat after graduation.

On day 1, Vito rolled into the finals with three tech falls among his four wins. In the final he has Russian Abasgadzhi Magomedov, the 2021 World Champ. Great start for the USA. Three of our four wrestlers are in the finals and the fourth will wrestle for bronze.

Day 2, Kyle Dake is also into the finals, but clearly not the dominant wrestler he once was. No tech falls after the opening round (12-2, 9-4, 6-4,* 4-1). His opponent in the final is Sidakov, a Russian allowed to compete as an "independent," who won the world/olympic titles from 2018-20 before Russia was suspended from international competition.

Not as good a day for the US overall. Our 57kg (Zane Richards) and 86kg (Chance Marsteller), both first-time wrestlers who beat Team USA stalwarts/medalists, lost early and did not get pulled into repechage and can't medal. Zahid Valencia (82kg), another first time team member, also lost in the QF but will wrestle in tomorrow's repechage for bronze. In US-adjacent, news, Stevan Micic - an American wrestling internationally for Serbia after Michigan - is a finalist at 57kg, which has the live crowd in Belgrade fired up.

The medal round for yesterday's weight classes (including Vito) starts at noon on Flo.

* He was trailing the QF against Japan until getting a push out to take a 5-4 lead; the final point was a lost challenge about whether Japan scored before the final whistle but it was a YOLO challenge - Dake let up after the whistle and everyone knew it.

Congratulations to World Champion Vito Arujau! A 10-9 victory over Magomedov that was only that close due to some dubious scoring calls (and an unwise challenge from Vito).

ugarte
Congratulations to World Champion Vito Arujau! A 10-9 victory over Magomedov that was only that close due to some dubious scoring calls (and an unwise challenge from Vito).

Remarkable achievement

Arujau's final match: [youtu.be]

scoop85

ugarte
Congratulations to World Champion Vito Arujau! A 10-9 victory over Magomedov that was only that close due to some dubious scoring calls (and an unwise challenge from Vito).

Remarkable achievement

And especially cool because his father was a 2x World Champion (once for USSR, once for Russia), a world silver medalist (for Belarus) and an Olympic bronze medalist (for the Unified Team) at 48kg. Still a tough resume to catch but two generations of world champs is pretty amazing.

Tough finish for Dake. Going against Zaurbek Sidakov, the World/Olympic champ from 2018-20, he lost 10-7 in a wild, fun match. Dake took Bronze at the 2020 Olympics and had won the last two world titles. Somehow this was their first meeting.

Two Cornell wrestlers competing in the U23 world championships in Albania, starting on 10/23: Jacob Cardenas '24, our 197 going at 92kg in freestyle and Phillip Moomey '24, a backup at 133 and Greco specialist, wrestling (duh) in Greco at 60kg. Both have been World team members in the past, with Cardenas taking silver in this event last year and Moomey taking bronze at 2021 Junior PanAms.

ugarte
Two Cornell wrestlers competing in the U23 world championships in Albania, starting on 10/23: Jacob Cardenas '24, our 197 going at 92kg in freestyle and Phillip Moomey '24, a backup at 133 and Greco specialist, wrestling (duh) in Greco at 60kg. Both have been World team members in the past, with Cardenas taking silver in this event last year and Moomey taking bronze at 2021 Junior PanAms.

Cardenas goes 1-1 in the morning session, with a win over Russia (wrestling flagless) and a loss to Turkey. He needs the Turkish wrestler to win his semifinal later today to be pulled into repechage and compete for bronze. He'd have to win a pair of matches tomorrow against Japan and India for the medal.

ugarte
Cardenas goes 1-1 in the morning session, with a win over Russia (wrestling flagless) and a loss to Turkey. He needs the Turkish wrestler to win his semifinal later today to be pulled into repechage and compete for bronze. He'd have to win a pair of matches tomorrow against Japan and India for the medal.

Cardenas gets the win he needed from Gimli and will be in tomorrow's repechage for bronze at an hour too obscene in NYC to watch live but if he wins against Japan, the India match will be at a reasonable time (noon eastern).

In recruiting news, five guys with commitments to attend Cornell in the future were in Greensboro, NC for the Super 32 tournament (which has over 128 guys at some weights now). Of those 5 we had 3 medalists: Ayden Smith (5th at 113), Jaxon Joy (3rd at 144) and Alessio Perentin (5th at 165). (I thought Joy, the top seed, was robbed in his QF. He had a one point lead late and was hit with a dubious penalty point.)

Meanwhile, this is what the 120 lb champ, Anthony Knox, put on before he got his hand raised.

ugarte

ugarte
Cardenas goes 1-1 in the morning session, with a win over Russia (wrestling flagless) and a loss to Turkey. He needs the Turkish wrestler to win his semifinal later today to be pulled into repechage and compete for bronze. He'd have to win a pair of matches tomorrow against Japan and India for the medal.

Cardenas gets the win he needed from Gimli and will be in tomorrow's repechage for bronze at an hour too obscene in NYC to watch live but if he wins against Japan, the India match will be at a reasonable time (noon eastern).

Cardenas wins 6-0. On to the bronze medal match.

ugarte

ugarte

ugarte
Cardenas goes 1-1 in the morning session, with a win over Russia (wrestling flagless) and a loss to Turkey. He needs the Turkish wrestler to win his semifinal later today to be pulled into repechage and compete for bronze. He'd have to win a pair of matches tomorrow against Japan and India for the medal.

Cardenas gets the win he needed from Gimli and will be in tomorrow's repechage for bronze at an hour too obscene in NYC to watch live but if he wins against Japan, the India match will be at a reasonable time (noon eastern).

Cardenas wins 6-0. On to the bronze medal match.

Hard fought 4-3 win for Cardenas. He medals at U23 Worlds for the second year in a row, following up his silver in 2022 with a bronze this year. Once again, his only loss was to the gold medalist.

11/6/23 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat   WrestleStat (ELO)
125: Ungar 	 9	 7	10          9	
133: Arujau	 1	 1	 1          1
141: Cornella	 9	10	13         18
149: ???	??	??	??         ??
157: Shapiro	NR	21	NR        199
165: Ramirez	 8	 7	 7          5
174: Foca	 2	 2	 2          2
184: Loew	17	16	 8         11
197: Cardenas	 6	 7	 6          9
285: Fernandes	NR	10	11         15
TEAM DUAL:	xx	xx	 2          6
TEAM NCAA:	 6	 5	 3          7

WIN fixed the Ungar issue but are now only giving a top 20 so Shapiro's 22 goes away.
Intermat inexplicably still doesn't have Shapiro even though it has 3 freshman in the rankings.
Flo : Only change is Shapiro moves up a spot after a guy in front of him started his season with a loss.

ugarte
11/6/23 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat   WrestleStat (ELO)
125: Ungar 	 9	 7	10          9	
133: Arujau	 1	 1	 1          1
141: Cornella	 9	10	13         18
149: ???	??	??	??         ??
157: Shapiro	NR	21	NR        199
165: Ramirez	 8	 7	 7          5
174: Foca	 2	 2	 2          2
184: Loew	17	16	 8         11
197: Cardenas	 6	 7	 6          9
285: Fernandes	NR	10	11         15
TEAM DUAL:	xx	xx	 2          6
TEAM NCAA:	 6	 5	 3          7

WIN fixed the Ungar issue but are now only giving a top 20 so Shapiro's 22 goes away.
Intermat inexplicably still doesn't have Shapiro even though it has 3 freshman in the rankings.
Flo : Only change is Shapiro moves up a spot after a guy in front of him started his season with a loss.

Antisemites, obviously

scoop85

ugarte
11/6/23 Rankings...
Intermat inexplicably still doesn't have Shapiro even though it has 3 freshman in the rankings.
Flo : Only change is Shapiro moves up a spot after a guy in front of him started his season with a loss.

Antisemites, obviously

OBVIOUSLY

Preview coming this weekend. Also, a lot of wrestling with the team traveling to the Journeymen Classic, a tournament with pooled round robins that ... idk i'm not sure i understand the structure at all. A lot of people get a handful of matches. As klehner posted on the Cornell Big Red Bears wrestling forum,

klehner
This event has very limited seating: 600 total tickets. Fifty percent of the seating opportunities are in the bleachers, while the remaining 50% of the spectating opportunities is via standing room only mat side. This tournament is built for the teams and competition oriented, not spectator driven. The format is modified round robin bracketing - not a traditional championship bracket. Essentially 6 to 8 evenly matched competitors are positioned in a modified round robin bracket : 3 on one side and three on the other . Guaranteeing each competitor 3 to four matches . That said there will be some unbelievable wrestling and marque national level match ups peppered throughout the day. In the end this setting will be very similar to the Bill Farrell (NYAC) Freestyle tournament. 17 teams will participate on 8 mats ( the lower gym), 2 mats in the upper gym. We just want to make sure expectation are met and you understand the setting in advance.

Tea leaves from the team's social media indicate that Colton Yapoujian is the presumptive starter at 149. Very talented but has been plagued with injuries since arriving on campus. He's also now down at 149, after being at 157 since 2019.

Cornell blows away Sacred Heart 48-3 -- 45 minutes from start to finish including intros and national anthem. No match at 125, no halftime, and barely any breaks between matches.

dag14
Cornell blows away Sacred Heart 48-3 -- 45 minutes from start to finish including intros and national anthem. No match at 125, no halftime, and barely any breaks between matches.

And Arujau didn’t wrestle. If he did, it would have been 54-0.

dag14
Cornell blows away Sacred Heart 48-3 -- 45 minutes from start to finish including intros and national anthem. No match at 125, no halftime, and barely any breaks between matches.

Indeed. And since it ended before kickoff started and the football game will be relentlessly critiqued in its own thread, I may as well get that damn season preview up, interspersed with a match report.

125: Sacred Heart's 125 got injured last weekend so they forfeited the weight. Cornell 6-0

After coming a heartbeat from All-American last year, Brett Ungar starts the season ranked #7. With Yianni's younger brother Greg Diakomihalis, a 5-time New York State high school champion, coming off of injury, there was some speculation that there might be a competition at the weight. I'm not sure that was ever true, but even if there was it was resolved last weekend. Ungar beat Greg D. at the Journeymen Classic, and Diakomihalis lost to Penn's Miller by fall as well. Ungar is damn good and I want to see him on the podium this year.


133: Vito Arujau took the tournament off and in his stead Ethan Qureshi fought a back and forth match but gave up a late takedown and lost 8-6. Cornell 6-3

There is no doubt that Arujau, the defending 133lb national champion and reigning 61kg world champion, is the starter at this weight. Last week at the Journeymen, he suffered a shocking loss to Lehigh's highly-touted redshirt freshman Ryan Crookham. I wouldn't read too much into it; Arujau was able to get to Crookham's legs, but Crookham was surprisingly savvy at creating scramble positions that Vito clearly didn't anticipate. He's the odds-on favorite to repeat as champion despite this early loss. I'll note that the same thing happened to Yianni early in his final year and it didn't get in the way of his 4th title.

141: Vince Cornella made quick work of his opponent and won with a first period fall. Cornell 12-3

Cornella was an All-American candidate last year when he gave up a shocking pin when he got sloppy late in a match he was dominating. He gave up a takedown when trying for a major decision and then lost concentration when he thought his opponent was letting him up to try to score again; instead his opponent faked a release and then caught Cornella sleeping to wrench him over. I don't think that mistake happens again. Last week, Cornella took last year's #2 to overtime which is a better representation of his ability. He's easily top 12 and if he doesn't AA this year, he will next.

149: Ethan Fernandez got takedowns early, late and middle. He was never threatened; WMD 11-2. The rule change that increased the score of a takedon from 2 to 3 was the difference between a win and a major decision. Cornell 16-3

Ethan Fernandez wrestled very capably last season as Vito's fill-in at 133 but he's bumped to 149 and looks to have secured the starting position after Handlovic went 1-2 at Journeymen and Grey implied that he may be adjusting to the weight (he started at 157 last season). This is the only weight where the starter is genuinely in dispute and I'm interested to see it develop. I don't know that any of our 149s are going to threaten nationally but it would be nice to simply qualify the weight at NCAAs and send a full slate of 10. One wildcard here is Joshua Saunders, one of our best recruits, who has not had the college career people anticipated for a variety of reasons. If he fulfilled his potential he'd probably easily be the starter here.

157: Meyer Shapiro makes his home debut for the Big Red and came out with a bang. A quick takedown a slew of nearfall points, a pin that probably should have been called and a 15-0 Tech Fall early in the second period. Cornell 21-3

Meyer Shapiro is our biggest recruit since Yianni. A two-time Junior world champion, he left his high school in Maryland to come to Ithaca for his senior year to work with the Cornell-affiliated staff at the Spartan Combat Regional Training Center. While there, he wrestled a redshirt-style schedule and went 15-0. The ranking services have him in the low 20's but to be fair, a lot of people are projecting him into the finals at least. Looking forward to it.

165: Julian Ramirez had no problem with an overmatched opponent. Got a TD about a minute in and spent the next minute settling in to WBF. Cornell 27-3

Ramirez has come a single match short of All-American in his first two seasons. He also won the U23 Team USA qualifying tournament and has represented Team USA in some international competition. This is the year he breaks through and finishes on the podium. The elite at the weight are probably a bit better but I have no doubt that he's a top-8 wrestler and will win when it counts.

174: Benny Baker makes a start at 174 and runs through his opponent for a second period TF that also probably could have been a pin. Cornell 32-3

Baker may start for the Red in the future but for now, this weight is Chris Foca's. Foca finished in third place last year and is currently ranked #2 in the country after the graduation of one finalist. He's getting back on the podium.

184: Chris Foca bumped up to take on his opponent at 184. He got a quick takedown and turned his opponent multiple times before sticking his shoulders to the mat for the fall. Cornell 38-3

Foca will go back to 174 and the starter spot at 184 will return to 2022 All-American Jonathan Loew, but not yet. His 2022-23 season was ended with a serious shoulder injury. He is taking off the first semester to comply with Ivy eligibility rules and return to the lineup after the winter break. If he's back in form, he's a good candidate to return to the podium at NCAAs. If he is not, this weight is more like 149 without a real national threat. Look for Christian Hansen, Ethan Hatcher or Benny Baker to step up.

197: Jacob Cardenas, like Ramirez and Foca, made very quick work of his opponent and WTF. Cornell 43-3

Cardenas is the man at 197. He was an All-American in 2023 and has back-to-back medals at the World U23 championships at 92kg (2022 silver, 2023 bronze). He can wrestle with anyone but sometimes needs to diversify his offense against the top contenders. He's likely to get back on the podium imo.

285: Lewis Fernandes got an early takedown and continued his history of being a dominant top wrestler with mutliple near falls. He did give up a reversal but quickly recovered for a first period tech fall. FINAL: Cornell 48-3

Fernandes was a terrible stalemate call from finishing as Cornell's first heavyweight All-American in 2022 before losing in OT of the Round of 12. Last year, he was plagued by injuries and wasn't really himself. He was a top recruit and an All-American contender but hasn't quite had the results to be considered a favorite. He's a little small for the weight, which can be a problem against some of the top big men. He's incredibly strong on top, but also a risk taker trying to score extra points which can lead to reversals, and he is not as good on bottom. I am hoping for a return to form because at his best he's a fun heavyweight to watch with a rare skill set.

The team looks collectively fantastic, as you can see from the rankings. 6 of 10 are considered all-american contenders and that doesn't even include Shapiro, who is only being asked to earn the "real" ranking people have in their minds. The NCAA has shrunk the team podium from four to three (literally, allegedly, to save money on trophies) so getting another team trophy got a little harder but nobody would be surprised if they pulled it off even with the strength of Big 10 programs that enhance themselves by poaching "small" school All-Americans for transfer to fill the gaps in their lineups.

It's going to be fun.


11/14/23 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat   WrestleStat (ELO)
125: Ungar 	 9	 7	10         12	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2          1
141: Cornella	 9	 8	13         16
149: ???	??	??	??         ??
157: Shapiro	NR	21	22         28
165: Ramirez	 8	 7	 7          5
174: Foca	 2	 2	 2          2
184: Loew	17	15	 7         13
197: Cardenas	 6	 7	 6          8
285: Fernandes	NR	16	21         21
TEAM DUAL:	xx	xx	 2          6
TEAM NCAA:	 6	 2	 4          4

11/20/23 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)
125: Ungar 	 5	 6	11	 12	 20 	12	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  1 	 1
141: Cornella	 8	 8	14	 13	  9	16
149: ???	??	??	??	 ??      ??	??
157: Shapiro	NR	19	21	 10	 NR	28
165: Ramirez	 8	 7	 7        7	  7	 5
174: Foca	 2	xx	xx	 xx	  4	xx
184: Foca  	xx	 3	 4	  4	 xx	 2	
197: Cardenas	 6	 6	 6	  6	  6	 8
285: Fernandes	NR	16	21	 16	 NR	21
TEAM DUAL:	xx	xx	 2	  6	 xx	 6
TEAM NCAA:	 2	 3	 9	 10	 xx	 4

I can't fight City Hall. If he's getting ranked at 184, Foca's the 184. I'd be surprised if Loew gets bumped from the lineup his final year but I guess not that surprised, since Foca is the big dawg now after finishing in second last year and Loew's continued health is less certain. 184 is also lacking a real dominant #1 and while I don't know if Foca will be able to carry over his success, I'm not sure I'd put a post-surgery Loew in semifinals contention either. All subject to change in January anyway so... it is what it is and I'll keep posting the services who keep Loew in the rankings or Foca at 174.

Looks like Loew reinjured his shoulder and he's done, so I'm taking him off the chart. Next week's rankings will have everyone ranking Foca at 184 and we aren't going to have anyone ranked at 174.

WIN Ungar up to 5. Shapiro still not ranked, though Iowa State's Chittum is. Didn't get the memo about Foca.
Intermat Up now. In the same range as others.
Flo : As mentioned, Foca now the 184, leaving no ranked wrestlers at 149 or 174.
Amateur Wrestling News Adding AWN to the chart (thanks jdalu). Down on our lower weights but gave Vito a break on his loss. No team rankings.
The Open Mat Adding The Open Mat to the chart. They are relatively down on a lot of guys and punished Vito the most for his loss to Crookham but are the first to put Shapiro in the top 10.
Wrestlestat Shapiro gets some respect from the computer with his 4-0 start. A little surprising that he jumped so much after a 3-0 first week since his 4th opponent is his lowest ranked this season.

This Sunday most of the team will be at the Mat Town Open at Lock Haven and it will probably go a long way to settling who gets the early nod at 149 and 174 for dual season. Whoever gets the start at CKLV on December 1 gets to be on the grid.

Mat Town Open from report from the [cornellsun.com]

11/27/23 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)
125: Ungar 	 4	 6	 8	 13	 20 	11	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  1 	 1
141: Cornella	 8	 8	14	 13	  9	15
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	NR	 NR      NR	44
157: Shapiro	NR	19	21	 10	 NR	28
165: Ramirez	 8	 7	 7        7	  7	 5
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     51
184: Foca  	 4	 3	 4	  4	 xx	 2	
197: Cardenas	 6	 6	 6	  6	  6	 8
285: Fernandes	NR	16	21	 16	 NR	21
TEAM DUAL:	xx	xx	 2	  6	 xx	 5
TEAM NCAA:	 4	 4	 6	  9	 xx	 7

AWN didn't update, and they're the only ranker left with Foca at 174 so I took that line off the chart. I've put the starters at CKLV on the grid but NB that Saunders is supposedly returning to the team in January and there's a reasonable likelihood he'll take over as the starter at 149.

WIN Shapiro still not ranked! This weekend's CKLV tournament should change that if he wrestles as expected. They still have Loew ranked at 184 as well (at 18), but I think that's just being sloppy. He's out for the year.
Flo They have Shapiro ranked at 19 but also predict that he'll win CKLV. An artifact of a ranking philosophy where they don't let their gut override actual results. He might be #1 or 2 if they were forced to betray their ranker's oath.
Intermat Not much change.
The Open Mat Not much change.
Amateur Wrestling News No update yet. I've been told they are really bad about updating the site.
Wrestlestat Fernandez and Baker get their first ELO rankings on the grid.

All the starters but Vito are going to Las Vegas. Arujau is set to return to the mid-December dual meets after recovering from an unknown but apparently not serious injury.

Big midseason tournament starting at noon eastern today, the Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas (CKLV). We are sending almost all of our starters, with only Vito taking the weekend off as he recovers from a mystery injury. He is supposed to be back for dual season in a couple of weeks.

Our starters, and their tournament seeds, are:

125: Brett Ungar (3) v Wagner (Binghamton)
133: Ethan Qureshi (U) v Ramos (Citadel) - winner faces Orine (1) in R16
141: Vince Cornella (6) v Vandervere (Northwestern)
149: Ethan Fernandez (U) v Rivera (Campbell) - winner faces Parco (2) in R16
157: Meyer Shapiro (14) v Cangro (Harvard) - winner faces Andonian (3) in R16
165: Julian Ramirez (4) v Bell (Maryland)
174: Benny Baker (U) v Uliano (Appalachian St.) - winner faces DeVos (3) in R16
184: Chris Foca (3) v Rowley (Purdue)
197: Jacob Cardenas (3) v Kendricks (Morgan St.)
285: Lewis Fernandes (10) v Berisha (Sacred Heart) - Fernandes teched him in under 2 minutes a couple of weeks ago

We have no seeded opponents in the first round but our unseeded (and low-seeded) wrestlers have very tough R16 matchups. Not to look past anyone, but Andonian looks to be the first real test of Shapiro's Cornell career and beating him will vault him into the rankings where people already lowkey think he should be ranked but for wanting him to prove it on the mat.

Mixed results from day 1 at CKLV. We'll start with the good news, move on to the "as expected" and then close with the bad. Why? idk man.

Good news (guys in the semis):
125: He ran through his first round opponent and then got a pair of grinding one point wins. He beat Harvard's Sotelo in the second round, his third straight win over Sotelo after losing 1-0 in last year's Harvard dual. In the next round, he won after two rounds of overtime. He can use the rest. Up next is DeAugustino (Michigan), a 2022 All-American.

165: Julian Ramirez has been destroying worlds. A pin in just over 2 minutes, an 18-1 TF then another pin over a top-10 wrestler. Up next is a big jump: 3x all-american and 2021 national champ David Carr (Iowa State). Ramirez kept it pretty close but lost last year.

197: Jacob Cardenas has had an incredible tournament. A tech fall, a major decision and then another tech fall over last year's B1G champion. Up next is 3x all-american Trent Hidlay (NC State).

Stayin' Alive:
141: Vince Cornella is still fighting in the consolation bracket. After an easy tech and a dominant major decision, Cornella got blown out by Mendez (Ohio State) in the QF. He won by major in his first consolation match, so he'll finish top 8. His next opponent is Jamison (OK State), who doesn't have much of a college record.

285: Lewis Fernandes opened the day with a 15-0 tech fall over a guy he dominated in similar fashion two weeks ago. He then got majored by Ohio State's heavy. In the consolation round, he started slow, winning 2-0. He followed up with a tech fall and a win over Catka (VT), who was seeded above him. His next opponent is McDermott (OR State).

More or less what we expected:
133: Ethan Qureshi had a nice MD to kick off his day, followed by a tech fall loss to the top seed and another tech fall loss to a top 10 wrestler who got upset in the first round and knocked down to the consolation bracket.

149: Ethan Fernandez started with a win before getting majored by a 2x all-american and medically forfeiting his consolation match. I didn't see the loss so I'm not sure what happened.

174: Benny Baker got the first takedown of his first match but couldn't hang on. He strung together three wins, including two bonus point wins, before falling to a seeded wrestler.

WTF:
157: Meyer Shapiro started his day with a tech fall and a dominant win over a 2x All-American before losing to a wrestler he dominated in freestyle and then losing again. In both of his losses he seemed out of sorts. Slow to return to center, multiple injury breaks. Not sure what's going on but he was having a lot of trouble scoring from neutral off of his own offense, though he did great work on counter-offense against the AA. I can't tell if he was injured or got tired. Hope he's OK.

184: Chris Foca opened his day with a one-point win over a wrestler with no resume to speak of. He then lost back-to-back and apparently may have injured himself as well. Not sure what's going on there. He apparently had a recent death in the family and he may be temporarily off his game or out of conditioning. In any event, it was shocking to see him struggle.

After day 1 the team sits in 4th place with 5 wrestlers still alive.

Tuned into day 2 a little late; got confused about the start time. My initial observation watching Cornella wrestle: I HATE THOSE SINGLETS! The design reminds me of Ithaca High School athletic apparel. Too "cute" for grown men [and women should any of the women's team adopt something similar].

Rough day so far with a couple of bright spots.

Good news (guys in the finals):
125: Ungar was leading his semifinal against DeAugustino 5-1 after the second period and in the course of getting a reversal, something not great happened to DeAugustino's knee. He tried to continue but after giving up another escape on the reset, DeAugustino threw in the towel. Up next for Ungar is Nico Provo, a Stanford soph who was on track to come to Cornell before following Koll west (but not back east). Probably for the best for both of them that they aren't in the same room (especially with Vito at 133). Ungar is the higher seeded/ranked wrestler, but Provo has had an incredible tournament that includes a win over a 2023 NCAA finalist.

165: Ramirez had a fun, wild match with Carr that was belied by the low score. For 6.5 minutes these guys fired off tons of real shots at each other without success. With extra time looming, Carr got in on a deep shot but after a sprawl and scramble, Ramirez ended up on top for a 3 point takedown. Probably the wisest course would have been to cut Carr for 1 then run away because it's unlikely he'd have been dinged for stalling more than once. Then again, easy to say from my office chair. What he did was try to ride out the period and with ~8 seconds left, Carr reversed him (for 2) and plausibly held him with his back exposed (for another 2) but the exposure points weren't awarded, even after a challenge, and Ramirez notched his second career victory over a former NCAA champion. In the finals, he'll face Izzak Olejnik, a 2023 All-American who is off to a great start to his grad transfer season, with a pair of wins over top-5 wrestlers.

Stayin' Alive:
197: Cardenas relies largely on going low - blast doubles and low doubles, and Hidlay is very hard to go low on. Not a good matchup for him, and he lost his semifinal 10-2. That loss dropped him into the consolation semifinals against VT's Sonny Sasso, who he dominated 14-4. The win sets up a fight for third place with the 1 seed and defending NCAA finalist, SDSU's Tanner Sloan. Sloan beat Cardenas in the NCAA tournament last year and I don't think this is a particularly good matchup for him either.


Not great, Bob!
141: Cornella lost a pair of major decisions to wrestlers ranked lower than him, falling to 8th place.

285: Fernandes was leading 1-0 after an early third period escape against a wrestler who was unwilling to go underneath him. After that, he gave up a takedown, 2NF and couldn't get up, losing 6-1 and falling to the 7th place match. He then took a medical forfeit in that match, so I hope he didn't get hurt on the takedown or struggling to stand.

Cornell has now fallen to 6th but could possibly pass Oregon State for 5th.

Woof. 0-5 in the CKLV medal round. Two silvers, a 4th and two 8ths. Plus. two elite wrestlers go 0-2 in the consolation bracket and miss the medal round entirely and while neither looked like they had an injury that should linger, it's still a bummer.

At 125, Ungar was in another low scoring match and nearly got the takedown he needed at the end when he was down 2-1* but Provo countered and finished the takedown himself to win 5-1 and gets 2d place.

At 165, nip and tuck the whole way and once again a single takedown decides it and Ramirez falls to Olejnik 4-2 and finsihes in 2d

At 197, Cardenas comes up short again against Tanner Sloan, 7-2, for 4th place.

At 149, Cornella, seeded 6 finished in 8th.
At 184, Foca, seeded 3, missed the podium.
A5 157, forget Shapiro's seed; he knocked off the 3 seed and then looked hurt. I'm not worried about his ability but it's a dissapointing result and if the injury is serious, it's devastating on a human level and for the team.
At Hwt, Fernandes, seeded 10, finished 8, and while that's ok, i guess, it's only due to a resetting of expectations from when he was ranked in the top 10 and a hair's breadth from All-American as a frosh.

Can't be upset about: Cardenas finishing in 4th despite being seeded 3d. He only lost to the 1 and 2 seeds. Ramirez came in the 4 seed and lost to 3 after beating 1. Ungar, 3, beat 2 before losing to 9 but that's hard to complain about too - Provo beat 8, 4 and 1 on his way to the final and sometimes a guy is just on a heater. And 133, 149 and 174 were expected to struggle and I give Baker credit for winning 3 on the back side.

Unfortunately, the We need Arujau back at 133 and a healthy Shapiro and Foca returning to form or this very promising season is going to a dark place really fast.

12/4 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA
125: Ungar 	 3	 7	 5	  7 	  5 	11 	 1	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2
141: Cornella	12	 8	15	 16	 13	23 	 1
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	NR	 NR      NR	47 	 5
157: Shapiro	NR	17	15	 16	 NR	 4 	 3
165: Ramirez	 4	 4	 3        3	  7	 3 	 1
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     49 	NR
184: Foca  	 7	14 	 9	  9	  9	 4	 1
197: Cardenas	 6	 8	 7	  7	  9	 5 	 4
285: Fernandes	19	19	19	 19	 20	19 	 
TEAM DUAL:	 6	 3	 3	  6	 xx	 3
TEAM NCAA:	 5	10	 5	  8	 xx	 3

WIN Shapiro would have gotten a huge bump from beating Andonian but the back to back losses keep him off the chart. CKLV moved up Ungar, Ramirez and Fernandes but Foca and Cornella slid down.
Flo Flo gave Shapiro a slight bump up and Foca a big slide down. Cardenas lost to #2 and #3 and somehow slid from 6 to 8. On the other hand, the team ranking took a real big hit falling from 4 to 10.
Intermat Surprised the team scores didn't take a big hit with Foca's drop, but not much changed.
The Open Mat Not much change.
Amateur Wrestling News Huge jump for Ungar, who was way too low last time. Cardenas slip kind of inexplicable and Ramirez didn't get any respect.
Wrestlestat The computer loves Shapiro's win over Andonian and it jumped the team up in the rankings despite minimal movement elsewhere.

No action for a couple of weeks and then a series of dual meets in Nashville on 12/18-19 on a network that I'm probably not going to pay to watch. We face Little Rock, Pitt and Iowa State in ascending order of difficulty. The last one will have a great rematch of Ramirez-Carr, which ... man ... I might pay to see...

Also the EIWA conference rankings have been added, which means nothing now but will matter for conference tournament seeding at the end of the season. Only the top 8 spots get seeded.

12/11 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA
125: Ungar 	 3	 6	 5	  6 	  5 	11 	 1	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2
141: Cornella	13	12	16	 17	 12	26 	 1
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	NR	 NR      NR	49 	 5
157: Shapiro	NR	16	15	 16	 17	 4 	 3
165: Ramirez	 4	 4	 3        3	  3	 3 	 1
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     54 	NR
184: Foca  	 7	13 	 9	  9	  8	 4	 1
197: Cardenas	 6	 8	 7	  7	  9	 6 	 4
285: Fernandes	19	19	19	 19	 19	21 	 
TEAM DUAL:	 5	 3	 3	  6	 xx	 3
TEAM NCAA:	 5	10	 8	  8	 xx	 3

WIN Not much change. Cornella slipped because someone ranked below him had a big win.
Flo Not much change. Small moves based on other guys activity while we were idle. Cornella slid a big but still tied for the highest ranking he gets.
Intermat Tournament rank takes the hit I expected last week. Otherwise, same kind of tinkering.
The Open Mat Same kind of tinkering.
Amateur Wrestling News Ramirez gets the deserved bump and Shapiro makes his debut in the AWN rankings.
Wrestlestat Moderate changes from the bleep bloop analysis here and there.

We have some dual meets in Nashville on 12/18-19 on a network that I'm probably not going to pay to watch. We face Little Rock, Pitt and Iowa State in ascending order of difficulty. The last one will have a great rematch of Ramirez-Carr, which ... man ... I might pay to see... We are also sending some wrestlers to Lehigh for the Sheridan Invitational on December 22 but it isn't currently on our schedule. This would likely include a rematch between Vito Arujau and Ryan Crookham, who upset him in the opening tournament of the season and has taken over (and held) the #1 ranking in most services. Another rematch I'd probably pay to watch.

EIWA wil release December rankings at the end of the month.

12/11 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA
125: Ungar 	 3	 6	 5	  6 	  5 	11 	 1	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2
141: Cornella	13	12	16	 17	 12	26 	 1
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	NR	 NR      NR	49 	 5
157: Shapiro	NR	16	15	 16	 17	 4 	 3
165: Ramirez	 4	 4	 3        3	  3	 3 	 1
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     54 	NR
184: Foca  	 7	13 	 9	  9	  8	 4	 1
197: Cardenas	 6	 8	 7	  7	  9	 6 	 4
285: Fernandes	19	19	19	 19	 19	21 	 
TEAM DUAL:	 5	 3	 3	  6	 xx	 3
TEAM NCAA:	 5	10	 8	  8	 xx	 3

WIN Not much change. Cornella slipped because someone ranked below him had a big win.
Flo Not much change. Small moves based on other guys activity while we were idle. Cornella slid a big but still tied for the highest ranking he gets.
Intermat Tournament rank takes the hit I expected last week. Otherwise, same kind of tinkering.
The Open Mat Same kind of tinkering.
Amateur Wrestling News Ramirez gets the deserved bump and Shapiro makes his debut in the AWN rankings.
Wrestlestat Moderate changes from the bleep bloop analysis here and there.

We have some dual meets in Nashville on 12/18-19 on a network that I'm probably not going to pay to watch. We face Little Rock, Pitt and Iowa State in ascending order of difficulty. The last one will have a great rematch of Ramirez-Carr, which ... man ... I might pay to see... We are also sending some wrestlers to Lehigh for the Sheridan Invitational on December 22 but it isn't currently on our schedule. This would likely include a rematch between Vito Arujau and Ryan Crookham, who upset him in the opening tournament of the season and has taken over (and held) the #1 ranking in most services. Another rematch I'd probably pay to watch.

EIWA wil release December rankings at the end of the month.

Wild and controversial day at the Journeyman duals. Cornell had dual meets against UA Little Rock, Pitt and Iowa State. Sort of.

Cornell 32 - UALR 8
125: Ungar W 7-3 - Closer result than you'd expect but I can't tell you more because I joined the action for 149. CU 3-0

133: Arujau W 4-0 - Arujau's been away since losing to Crookham back in mid-November, apparently dealing with minor injuries. Closer result than expected, but Bailey is a freshman that is turning heads and has climbed into the rankings already. Bailey was mad about something at the end of the match and gave Vito a shove rather than a handshake, costing his team a penalty point. CU 6-(-1)

141: Cornella WTF 17-1 5:57 - Dominant win from Cornella. Logged on to the stream after this one. CU 11-(-1)

149: Fernandez W 14-13 - Wild match. Fernandez was down 7-0 early but clawed back for a great win. CU 14-(-1)

157: Shapiro W 8-1 - Facing a ranked wrestler in his first opportunity after his unfortunate back-to-back losses in Las Vegas, Shapiro looked much better in his return to the mat. Got a couple of takedowns, rode hard. Nearly got a bonus win. CU 17-(-1)

165: Ramirez WBF 2:17 - Dominant, continuing a great start to the season. CU 23-(-1)

174: Baker LBF 4:31 - First match where Cornell was putting the underdog on the mat. Baker was game, got in deep but never finished. There was no scoring from neutral, but Baker chose bottom, couldn't escape, and when Brennan turned Baker over, he flattened him out for the fall. CU 23-5

184: Hansen L 0-5 - Foca sat this one out. Like Baker, Hansen had his chances, but he was never able to finish. CU 23-8

197: Cardenas WBF 5:12 - Marquee match of the dual with Cardenas and Little both in the top 10 in some rankings. Cautiously wrestled, with the only scoring through the first two rounds an escape by Cardenas. In the third, Cardenas started on top, Little stood up and Cardenas threw him back to the mat, and rolled him over at an angle that squared his shoulders long enough for the ref to award the pin. Flash finish. CU 29-8

285: Fernandes W 5-0 - Not a ton of action but Fernandes got the only takedown of the match. CU 32-8 FINAL

Cornell 27 - Pitt 12
125: Ungar L 1-3 - This was more like one of Ungar's early season matches from last year, rather than the way he's wrestled since. Trouble getting off of bottom and too tentative in trying to score. He escaped to take a 1-0 lead, but when he started the period on top, he got reversed for 2 and was unable to get out. Pitt 3-0

133: Arujau WTF 19-4 5:55 - This was a return to form, ragdolling a decent opponent. Cornell 5-3

141: Cornella W 8-2 - Matthews is a former All-American, ranked higher than Cornella, who had a nightmare of a day, losing all three of his matches - including to the Little Rock wrestler who Cornella destroyed. It's hard to believe that Matthews beat Jesse Mendez, who teched Cornella without breaking a sweat a couple of weeks ago. Cornella was never in trouble. Looked better than he has all season. Cornell 8-3

149: Fernandez W 4-1 - Heck of a follow-up from Fernandez, taking out a ranked wrestler at 149. Cornell 8-3

157: Shapiro WMD 14-3 Dominant win over a guy he should dominate. Looked good. Cornell 12-3

165: Ramirez WMD 11-1 - Facing another top 10 wrestler, Ramirez was never threatened. There was one awkward scramble where the legs got all tangled up like the tails of a rat king and both guys came up limping a little. Hope it's nothing serious because Ramirez sat out the last dual. More on that later. Cornell 16-3

174: Baker L 5-1 - Facing a ranked wrestler, Baker kept it close but ... no cigar. Cornell 16-6

184: Foca WTF 18-1 - Foca destroyed a ranked opponent. Exactly what you want to see. Cornell 21-6

197: Cardenas W 2-1 - Kinda boring. Cardenas escapes, gets another point on stalling calls. Gives up an escape. Once time gets short, Cardenas plays keep-away until the whistle. A win is a win. Cornell 24-6

285: Davis LBF 4:40 - Davis gets the start for some reason, maybe because he's a Tennessee kid and they're wrestling in Nashville? There are more suspicious theories... In any event, Pitzer is ranked higher than Fernandes and is definitely too much for Davis. Cornell 24-12 FINAL

Iowa State 26 - Cornell 15
125: Greg Diakomihalis WBF 6:34 - Unclear why Ungar got the match off, but getting dinged up would explain his difficulty against Pitt. In any event, Greg D. gets a chance and makes the most of it. The match was high-scoring and close throughout. In the third, trailing by a point, both guys went for a big throw but Greg is the one who landed it, sticking Terukina on his back and holding him for the fall. Incredible match. Cornell 6-0

133: Qureshi L 12-5 - Another starter sits. Vito indicated on Twitter that he was dinged up, which is why he sat, but the chirping on the internet started right away. Iowa State's first two wrestlers are both ranked and we sat our starters for both. Qureshi kept it closer than expected and scored on a pair of reversals but Frost isn't in the top 10 by accident. Cornell 6-3

141: Cornella LMD 13-4 - Cornella got a rematch against Echemendia, who won fairy easily in Las Vegas. Alas, just more of the same. Echemendia looks huge compared to Cornella. Iowa State 7-6

149: Fernandez L 5-1 - Good day for Fernandez despite the loss. Iowa State 10-6

157: Handlovic LMD 20-6 - This was a highly-anticipated matchup of top-tier freshmen, but Shapiro was held out - yet another starter sitting against a ranked wrestler. Iowa State 14-6

165: Rogers LBF 2:57 - Ramirez also sat for the even-more-highly-anticipated rematch between top-three wrestlers after Ramirez's upset win in Las Vegas. Rogers never stood a chance. Iowa State 20-6

174: Baker L 10-7 - This is a damn good result for Baker tbh. Iowa State 23-6

184: Foca W 8-7 - Finally, a Cornell wrestler takes the mat against top-flight competition. Foca was up early and then hung on for a close win. He needed this one badly after the disappointment in Las Vegas. Two quality wins on the day. Iowa State 23-9

197: Cardenas WBF 3:19 - After a lackluster first period, Cardenas started the second period on top and wrenched his opponent over for the fall. Iowa State 23-15

285: Fernandes L 6-3 - Fernandes was great on top but Bastida was far better in neutral, scoring the only two takedowns of the match. No shame in this loss, though if he wants to get on the podium, Fernandes is going to have to figure out how to score on other top heavies. Iowa State 26-15 FINAL

The internet is buzzing (or, more accurately, quacking) about all of the guys Cornell sat in the Iowa State match. Ungar, Vito, Shapiro and Ramirez all skipped matches against ranked opponents and the ducking accusations are flying. Afterwards, Vito, Yianni and Coach Grey all tweeted some variation on the guys getting banged up in earlier matches, and that they were held out to avoid aggravating the injuries. Alas, that has not abated the talk of Cornell ducking to keep from putting seeding at risk. I saw Ramirez get his knee tweaked, but none of the other injuries were obvious. I'm not implying that our guys are bullshitting, but I am saying that I understand why people who are not Cornell fans are not buying it.

Cornell is sending some guys to wrestle at Lehigh for an open tournament for a couple of days and Vito is supposed to be going, with the goal of a rematch with Crookham. Really hoping today didn't put that rematch in jeopardy. (Update: It very likely has.)

Big news in that starting next year, the Ivy League is splitting from the EIWA as a standalone conference, with its own AQ for the conference champ. Kind of a bummer, imo, because the 17-team tournament is a lot more fun than a six-team tournament will be. Not only that, we lose our rivalry with Lehigh and create two conferences where one school is historically dramatically stronger than the rest of the league.

The non-Cornell Ivy League teams have closed the gap in recent years, and that's great, but we're still pretty dominant in light of the incredible gulf that existed before the tightening. We'll see how it goes but I'm going to miss the gauntlet of having to go through the best that schools like Bucknell, Drexel and the service academies had to offer.

ugarte
Big news in that starting next year, the Ivy League is splitting from the EIWA as a standalone conference, with its own AQ for the conference champ. Kind of a bummer, imo, because the 17-team tournament is a lot more fun than a six-team tournament will be. Not only that, we lose our rivalry with Lehigh and create two conferences where one school is historically dramatically stronger than the rest of the league.

The non-Cornell Ivy League teams have closed the gap in recent years, and that's great, but we're still pretty dominant in light of the incredible gulf that existed before the tightening. We'll see how it goes but I'm going to miss the gauntlet of having to go through the best that schools like Bucknell, Drexel and the service academies had to offer.

Why is the Ivy League making this change?

does this require the IVY to not get a bid for a few yrs like others sports have had to wait?

ugarte
Big news in that starting next year, the Ivy League is splitting from the EIWA as a standalone conference, with its own AQ for the conference champ. Kind of a bummer, imo, because the 17-team tournament is a lot more fun than a six-team tournament will be. Not only that, we lose our rivalry with Lehigh and create two conferences where one school is historically dramatically stronger than the rest of the league.

The non-Cornell Ivy League teams have closed the gap in recent years, and that's great, but we're still pretty dominant in light of the incredible gulf that existed before the tightening. We'll see how it goes but I'm going to miss the gauntlet of having to go through the best that schools like Bucknell, Drexel and the service academies had to offer.

According to Robin Harris, “ In the last 10 years, Ivies have been crowned wrestling national champions 10 times and have earned 50 wrestling All-American honors.” Ugarte, for how many did Cornell account?

upprdeck
does this require the IVY to not get a bid for a few yrs like others sports have had to wait?

No, not according to the press release. There are enough teams in the Ivies and the rump EIWA that both will get an autobid for the conference champ.

Ken711
Why is the Ivy League making this change?

Not sure, but probably because it feels like the Ivy brand is much stronger than the shared EIWA brand with weak wrestling schools with much weaker brand value like F&M, Sacred Heart and LIU. The ILT can be done in one day and the field is small enough that any of the six schools can easily host. Even Levien is a good enough venue for a six-team tournament. I don't know if the EIWA - a conference older than the NCAA - will survive this. The EWL, which had schools like Bloomsburg, Clarion and Lock Haven, finally collapsed after multiple defections / program terminations and got folded into the MAC.

George64

ugarte
Big news in that starting next year, the Ivy League is splitting from the EIWA as a standalone conference, with its own AQ for the conference champ. Kind of a bummer, imo, because the 17-team tournament is a lot more fun than a six-team tournament will be. Not only that, we lose our rivalry with Lehigh and create two conferences where one school is historically dramatically stronger than the rest of the league.

The non-Cornell Ivy League teams have closed the gap in recent years, and that's great, but we're still pretty dominant in light of the incredible gulf that existed before the tightening. We'll see how it goes but I'm going to miss the gauntlet of having to go through the best that schools like Bucknell, Drexel and the service academies had to offer.

According to Robin Harris, “ In the last 10 years, Ivies have been crowned wrestling national champions 10 times and have earned 50 wrestling All-American honors.” Ugarte, for how many did Cornell account?

The only one I can think of that wasn't ours in the last ten years is Princeton's Patrick Glory who won at 125 last year. Harvard has won in my memory but not the last 10 years, I don't think. (Update: JP O'Connor won for Harvard in 2010, one of three NCAA champions at the school. Princeton had one more, in 1952. Penn, Brown and Columbia have never had an NCAA champ. Yale had two, but does not have a wrestling program anymore.)

Any particular reason why Dartmouth and Yale do not wrestle?

Trotsky
Any particular reason why Dartmouth and Yale do not wrestle?

I would normally think money, but with Yale, that's certainly not the case.

This says Title IX, but I'm pretty sure that is the go to whenever you want to divert criticism for cutting a sport since it gets the Usual Suspects in a lather.

Title IX killed a lot of wrestling programs, including Yale. I don't say this as a criticism of Title IX so much as a criticism of athletic department priorities. They killed wrestling instead of, say, taking money from football or starting women's volleyball or field hockey. Dartmouth has barely had a varsity wrestling program over the years and the last time we wrestled them was in the 1970's and I'm not sure that was a varsity program since they don't appear to have been in the EIWA.

Not having a hockey team could be I suppose be justifiable because of the facility expense of not having a rink. Can someone explain why Columbia doesn't field a men's lacrosse team?

ugarte

George64

ugarte
Big news in that starting next year, the Ivy League is splitting from the EIWA as a standalone conference, with its own AQ for the conference champ. Kind of a bummer, imo, because the 17-team tournament is a lot more fun than a six-team tournament will be. Not only that, we lose our rivalry with Lehigh and create two conferences where one school is historically dramatically stronger than the rest of the league.

The non-Cornell Ivy League teams have closed the gap in recent years, and that's great, but we're still pretty dominant in light of the incredible gulf that existed before the tightening. We'll see how it goes but I'm going to miss the gauntlet of having to go through the best that schools like Bucknell, Drexel and the service academies had to offer.

According to Robin Harris, “ In the last 10 years, Ivies have been crowned wrestling national champions 10 times and have earned 50 wrestling All-American honors.” Ugarte, for how many did Cornell account?

The only one I can think of that wasn't ours in the last ten years is Princeton's Patrick Glory who won at 125 last year. Harvard has won in my memory but not the last 10 years, I don't think. (Update: JP O'Connor won for Harvard in 2010, one of three NCAA champions at the school. Princeton had one more, in 1952. Penn, Brown and Columbia have never had an NCAA champ. Yale had two, but does not have a wrestling program anymore.)

I didn't answer this for the 50 AA's but those were almost all Cornell too. Brown had one in 2014; Columbia had one in 2013; Harvard had none in the last 10 years (but two in 2012); Penn has had 3 in the last ten years and one in 2012, including one in 2022; Princeton has 10, divided among six wrestlers, including two finalists and a champ last year. Penn has some potential AAs this year; Princeton's elite guys graduated. We have a handful of candidates and fewer than four would be very disappointing.

12/11 Rankings

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA/Flo EIWA
125: Ungar 	 5	 6	12	 10 	  5 	11 	 1/1	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2/2
141: Cornella	12	 8	17	 16	 12	26 	 1/1
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	24	 17      NR	51 	 5/2, but assumes Saunders
157: Shapiro	NR	16	15	 16	 17	 4 	 1/1
165: Ramirez	 4	 4	 3        3	  3	 3 	 1/1
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     58 	NR/6
184: Foca  	 6	13 	 8	  6	  8	 4	 1/1
197: Cardenas	 6	 8	 7	  7	  9	 7 	 1/1
285: Fernandes	19	19	19	 19	 19	21 	 4/3
TEAM DUAL:	 5	 3	 8	 10	 xx	 3
TEAM NCAA:	 5	 8	 9	  8	 xx	 3

WIN Not much change. Shapiro had a couple of good wins but neither of them are in the WIN top 20, so Shapiro didn't make it back in either.
Flo Couple of guys climbed one spot but nothing major
Intermat Ungar tumble after the loss to Camacho. Fernandez gets his first national ranking with a challenge to his starting spot by Saunders looming. Dropping Ungar and Cornella hurt the team rankings here as well.
The Open Mat Fernandez enters the rankings at OTM, in the top 20 to boot.
Amateur Wrestling News AWN finally ranks Shapiro and gives Ramirez the boost he's earned. .
Wrestlestat Computer still loves Shapiro but Ungar and Cornella slipped. Saunders currently higher (33) than Fernandez at 149.

I'm not sure all of these accounted for the Journeymen results, particularly Flo, which kept Feldkamp at 3 after Foca beat him.

EIWA conference rankings are still from November but I've added Flo's conference rankings.

Cornell sent a couple of wrestlers to Lehigh this weekend to wrestle in a holiday tournament, including former top recruit Joshua Saunders. At the time, I thought this was going to be part of a challenge for Ethan Fernandez's starting spot but... I don't think that anymore.

In his first match, against a Brown frosh backup with an 0-4 record, Saunders took an early 8-0 lead then, clearly gassed, spend the last two periods clinging on to his lead. In his second match, against a Lehigh backup with a 4-4 record, he agains spent the match backing up until the third period when he chose bottom and was quickly turned over for a fall.

He has had some injury history but the truth is that he has been a major disappointment since we landed him as a 5-star recruit after his appearance on Team USA at the Cadet and Junior levels. The expectation back in 2020 was that he'd slot in the 141/149 weight class that Yianni wasn't filling, but he simply hasn't been consistent or healthy enough to win the starting role in the room. I don't think Ethan Fernandez is giving up his spot in the starting lineup this year either.

EDIT: UGH follows this up by blowing an early lead to lose to an F&M backup in the consolation round. Fitness is in the toilet after a long layoff.

1/3 Rankings

I took some time away from reading the rankings, but then again so did some of the rankers. Here's where we are now.

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA/Flo EIWA
125: Ungar 	 5	16	14	 13 	  5 	21 	 1/1	
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2/2
141: Cornella	12	10	17	 17	 13	19 	 1/1
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	24	 18      NR	39 	 3/2, but assumes Saunders
157: Shapiro	NR	15	15	 15	 17	 4 	 2/1
165: Ramirez	 4	 4	 3        3	  3	 4 	 1/1
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     70 	NR/6
184: Foca  	 6	 7 	 8	  6	  6	 2	 1/1
197: Cardenas	 6	 8	 7	  8	  9	 5 	 1/1
285: Fernandes	19	19	19	 19	 19	22 	 5/3
TEAM DUAL:	 5	 3	 8	 10	 xx	 6
TEAM NCAA:	 5	 8	 8	  8	 xx	 2

WIN Hasn't updated since 12/20. If they update, I'll update.
Flo Ungar's loss at Journeymen before the break hit the rankings last week, and he fell to 13 before another drop because of other risers. Foca also got his Journeymen jump (for beating Feldkamp) last week. No update to the dual or EIWA rankings.
Intermat Unchanged except a one-slot bump in the NCAA team rankings.
The Open Mat The return of Binghamton's DePrez from injury bumped Cardenas down a spot.
Amateur Wrestling News Not much change.
Wrestlestat Saunders lost a pair of matches at a minor tournament and has fallen back behind Fernandez. Other than that, not much news.

Big dual on Friday against Ohio State.

i didnt check to see if it was streaming but cornell-osu is on the b10 channel tonight

upprdeck
i didnt check to see if it was streaming but cornell-osu is on the b10 channel tonight

Close dual. Lost 21-20, but was up 20-18 and leading the last match until a takedown with 25 seconds left. And defending champ Vito Arujau is still sitting with an injury. tbh I think he's being extra cautious because as soon as the NCAA season ends he has to drop 8 pounds for the Olympic trials and the team is aligned in that interest.

Virginia Tech, Sunday at 3.

125: No. 14 Brett Ungar def. No. 22 Brendan McCrone 7-1 by decision
133: No. 13 Nic Bouzakis def. Ethan Qureshi by fall (1:48)
141: No. 3 Jesse Mendez def. No. 17 Vince Cornella 14-4 by major decision
149: No. 5 Drew D'Emilio def. No. 24 Ethan Fernandez 8-1 by decision
157: No. 15 Meyer Shapiro def. No. 12 Paddy Gallagher 15-0 by fall
165: No. 3 Julian Ramirez def. Bryce Hepner 6-4 by decision
174: Rocco Welsh def. Benny Baker 20-4 by technical fall
184: No. 8 Chris Foca def. No. 14 Gavin Hoffman by fall (1:48)
197: No. 7 Jacob Cardenas def. No. 23 Luke Georg 8-2 by decision
HWT: No. 18 Nick Feldman def. No. 19 Lewis Fernandes 6-4 by decision

ugarte

upprdeck
i didnt check to see if it was streaming but cornell-osu is on the b10 channel tonight

Close dual. Lost 21-20, but was up 20-18 and leading the last match until a takedown with 25 seconds left. And defending champ Vito Arujau is still sitting with an injury. tbh I think he's being extra cautious because as soon as the NCAA season ends he has to drop 8 pounds for the Olympic trials and the team is aligned in that interest.

Virginia Tech, Sunday at 3.

125: No. 14 Brett Ungar def. No. 22 Brendan McCrone 7-1 by decision
133: No. 13 Nic Bouzakis def. Ethan Qureshi by fall (1:48)
141: No. 3 Jesse Mendez def. No. 17 Vince Cornella 14-4 by major decision
149: No. 5 Drew D'Emilio def. No. 24 Ethan Fernandez 8-1 by decision
157: No. 15 Meyer Shapiro def. No. 12 Paddy Gallagher 15-0 by fall
165: No. 3 Julian Ramirez def. Bryce Hepner 6-4 by decision
174: Rocco Welsh def. Benny Baker 20-4 by technical fall
184: No. 8 Chris Foca def. No. 14 Gavin Hoffman by fall (1:48)
197: No. 7 Jacob Cardenas def. No. 23 Luke Georg 8-2 by decision
HWT: No. 18 Nick Feldman def. No. 19 Lewis Fernandes 6-4 by decision

Shapiro and Foca were spectacular against very good opponents, which was great to see

I was surprised the way that Fernandez handled the last 40 secs.. he had no stall warnings. i would have thought he would have made the ref at least give him one to drag out the time a bit.

Another fun match..

any updates on the injury to the VT kid? That one pretty much decided the match

Fernandez redeems himself in the OT win though

Mostly fun 24-13 dual win over Virginia Tech.

125: No. 14 Brett Ungar L 4-2 to No. 9 Cooper Flynn - Ungar needs to generate more offense; he is losing too many of these close matches. He's good enough to beat Flynn as often as not and these losses are going to kill his seed for NCAAs.

133: Ethan Qureshi LMD 14-3 to No. 12 Sam Latona - Not worried about 133 outside of how long Arujau's injury is lingering. Qureshi is showing grit but he's not at the level of the elite EIWA 133's, much less the national competition.

141: No. 17 Vince Cornella W 4-2 over No. 18 Tom Crook - Very nice workmanlike win. Got the only takedown and defended well. Need to see more scoring but he's had a brutal schedule so far which is making his overall record look pretty awful.

149: No. 24 Ethan Fernandez L 9-2 to No. 2 Caleb Henson - Keeping this under a major, and almost scoring from his own offense, makes this a huge moral victory and provided a big benefit to the team score.

157: No. 15 Meyer Shapiro W Inj. Def. over No. 8 Bryce Andonian - this rematch was wild. started with a scramble from Shapiro's attack that led to a takedown for Andonian. Shapiro was attempting a reversal when Andonian's foot got trapped in the scramble and something went bad in Andonian's knee and he couldn't continue. Unclear what Andonian's status is but a real shame if the injury is serious.

165: No. 3 Julian Ramirez WMD 10-0 over No. 23 Connor Brady - Dominant. Brady was never in it. Didn't come close to scoring, never got off of bottom.

174: Benny Baker L 9-3 to No. 2 Mehki Lewis - Holding a former NCAA champ, and last year's 4th place finisher behind Foca, to a regular decision is incredibly impressive for Baker.

184: No. 8 Chris Foca WMD 12-4 over No. 18 Cody Howard - Foca is back to dominating at 184. Not worried about Las Vegas anymore.

197: No. 7 Jacob Cardenas WMD 11-1 over No. 26 Andy Smith - Cardenas is killing it at 197 this year. Smith was out of his depth.

285: No. 19 Lewis Fernandes W 6-3 OT over Jimmy Mullen - With the match locked up for Cornell (among other possible reasons), VT sent out a redshirt frosh for the match rather than their ranked Hwt. Wrestlestat's ELO evaluation doesn't see much difference between them, so I guess I can't be disappointed that it went to OT, especially given OT. Tied 3-3 after three rounds plus two minutes of Sudden Victory, the match turned to rideouts.* Fernandes had the first** choice and chose down. Unfortunately, despite some wild scrambling, Fernandes was unable to escape in 30 seconds. Fernandes is strongest on top, so rather than give him an opportunity to force another SV period or even get back points, Mullen chose neutral with the intention of running away for 30 seconds and winning on riding time. After chasing Mullen for 20+ seconds, Fernandes was able to grab Mullen's ankle and secure the takedown with 5 seconds left in the match. The Cornell bench went nuts.

Big dual at Lehigh on Saturday. Should be extra raucous given the Ivy exodus from EIWA. It will be our last dual against Lehigh as conference foes. WrestleStat has us favored in 8 matches - 7 if Arujau is still injured - but this dual is typically a lot more interesting than chalk. Three of our wins are against guys who are 0-1 against their Lehigh opponent. One of the matchups called for Lehigh is Cardenas-Beard, who split last year's matches, with Cardenas both winning the EIWA matchup and performing better at NCAAs. Both are having great seasons to date. It will be fun to watch for sure.


* A pair of 30 second periods where each wrestler gets one opportunity to choose a starting position. If the score is still tied after both periods, whoever is leading on riding time gets a decisive point. If RT is equal, there's another SV round. It's called "rideouts" because the wrestlers almost always choose down, because an escape point is the "easiest" way to score.

** Technically Mullen won the toss and deferred but come on...

ugly today.. Arujau's not wrestling probably cost them 3 of these results

upprdeck
ugly today.. Arujau's not wrestling probably cost them 3 of these results

i need to rewatch foca. if he gets the tech like he should have, cornell wins (or if he got credit for a fall). instead he didn't even get the major.

1/23 Rankings

I don't think I've updated since the rankings incorporated Ohio State, VT and Lehigh duals. WIN and AWN only rank to 20; Open Mat ranks to 25, Flo, Intermat and CR rank to 33. No new updates on the EIWA rankings; Ungar and Cardenas would probably slip behind their Lehigh counterparts. EIWA rankings updated.

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA/Flo  CR
125: Ungar 	17	15	13	 14 	 14 	17 	 2/2	  12
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2/2      NR
141: Cornella	10	10	13	 11	 11	15 	 1/1      12
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	28	 14      NR	35 	 1/1      24
157: Shapiro	11	14	12	  6	 10	 2 	 1/1       9
165: Ramirez	 5	 4	 2        2	  5	 4 	 1/1       3
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     89 	NR/10     NR
184: Foca  	 5	 8 	 9	  8	  5	 2	 1/1       6
197: Cardenas	 6	 9	 8	  8	  8	 7 	 2/2       7
285: Fernandes	18	20	18	 20	 NR	22 	 5/5      17
TEAM DUAL:	 9	 9	 9	 11	 xx	 3
TEAM NCAA:	 5	11	 9	  5	 xx	 2

WIN Ungar the big dropoff here. Otherwise not a lot of change.
Flo A few slight drops in the individuals here and there but a dramatic fall in the team rankings because those slight drops through the lineup are also slots on the podium, which is where big points get scored.
Intermat Not much changed.
The Open Mat Ungar with a big fall. Shapiro with a jump.
Amateur Wrestling News Not much change. Fernandes slips out of the rankings.
Wrestlestat The computer loves Shapiro and Foca's strength of schedule.
Coaches' Ranking Because of his injuries, Vito hasn't met the match minimum for ranking yet. It's not a concern. These rankings get updated periodically and are actually significant for conference bid allocation, at-large bids and to some extent reflect future seeding.

About as good a day as the team could have hoped leading up to tomorrows match

upprdeck
About as good a day as the team could have hoped leading up to tomorrows match

yeah, back to back blowouts. a shutout of brown (though their coach, Jordan Leen '09, is probably pretty mad about 125) after a blowout of Harvard, where we only lost two matches. One, at 165 with Ramirez taking a match off and another at 174 - our weakest weight, against Harvard's best wrestler.

Huge team W over #2 Missouri. More later.

hope the injury isnt too bad.

ugarte
Huge team W over #2 Missouri. More later.

125: #13 Ungar LBF 2:21 #7 Surtin - After a slow start from both wrestlers, feeling each other out, Surtin whipped Ungar straight to his back and settled in for the pin. Ungar fought hard and stayed in an arch for an almost impossibly long time but wasn't able to belly out. The weight may be a bit unsettled because of Greg Diakomihalis going 2-0 the day before against Brown and Harvard. In particular, Greg D. dominated a ranked Harvard wrestler who Ungar always wrestles close (though he is 3-1, and the weight is probably not actually unsettled.) [Mizzou 6-0]

133: #2 Arujau W 10-9 #27 Moore - An early scramble led to a takedown and back points for Moore, though Arujau got a quick reversal to make the score 6-2 after an escape. In the third period, down 8-3, Arjuau got a TD for 3, released, got another TD for 3 to tie it at 9 and rode out the rest of the match to pick up a riding time point and a 10-9 win. Scrappy finish to what looked like another potential shocker. [Mizzou 6-3]

141: #13 Cornella W 9-6 #23 Edmond - After jumping out to an early 6-1 lead, Cornella appeared to hurt his knee which started an Edmond comeback. Cornella got the knee wrapped and continued the match, but if I'm the Mizzou staff I'm not exactly happy about the way it was reffed. I think Edmond probably got another late takedown before going out of bounds that he didn't get credit for. The way Cornella was limping (even in the handshake line) I don't think he'd have stood a chance in OT. In the short term, a W. In the long term, as upprdeck said, we have to hope that it isn't an ACL injury. [6-6]

149: #28 Fernandez W 4-0 #25 Gioffre - Huge win for Fernandez over a quality opponent. Gioffre must have been worried about losing on RT because Fernandez escaped quickly in the second for a 1-0 lead but Gioffre chose to start the third at neutral. Gioffre never came close to scoring, and Fernandez was more of an aggressor, scoring the only takedown of the match in the closing seconds. [Cornell 9-6]

157: #12 Shapiro WMD 14-4 #5 Mauller - Another dominant win over a top-rated wrestler should lead to a huge jump in Shapiro's ranking. His two-match slip in Las Vegas really should not be weighing him down. He was all over Mauller from the opening whistle and it wasn't close. Mauller is a 3x All-American and Shapiro had no issues. Cornell 13-6

165: #2 Ramirez LMD 13-5 #1 O'Toole - Ramirez wanted this one since O'Toole "stole" his spot on U23 Team USA. (Ramirez won the U23 tournament but O'Toole took bronze Senior nationals, so O'Toole had the right to take the U23 spot. O'Toole ultimately won gold, following up on his back-to-back NCAA titles.) Ramirez jumped out to a 4-0 lead early in the second period, but by the end of the period O'Toole had tied the match. The third period was all O'Toole, seemingly able to snatch Ramirez's left ankle at will. Cornell 13-10

174: Canoyer L 8-2 #6 Mocco - This was a weight where we were expected to drop significant points. Credit to Canoyer for being game and nearly scoring more than once while holding Mocco at bay until very late. In the end, Mocco's significant skill advantage won out but keeping this close and minimizing the damage to the team score is a genuine moral victory. [13-13]


184: #9 Foca WMD 14-1 #11 Whiting - This was never close and but for one or two bad calls this could have been a pin or a tech. Early in the match, Foca whipped Whiting over and probably should have gotten at least a takedown and nearfall points on the edge. It looked like he may have had a pinning move. Alas, the ref ruled that he didn't stay in the circle (this call didn't look as bad on replay). No matter, Foca dominated the match on the mat. Late in the match, up by 13, it appeared that Foca released his opponent for an escape then immediately took him down again to stretch the lead to 15 for the tech fall, but the ref decided that there wasn't enough separation, taking away the escape and the takedown. He nearly got the tech anyway, but Whiting held off the last score. Cornell 17-13

197: #8 Cardenas W 4-0 #3 Elam - Huge win for Cardenas, possibly the most impressive win of his career. Maybe not the most significant, given his win over Beard for the 2023 EIWA title and his run to 8th place at NCAAs, but the best win over an individual opponent. Elam is a 3x AA who finished in third last year. Cardenas hit his signature blast double for the only offensive points of the match and then used excellent positioning to hold the lead. The win also locked up the dual for the Big Red. Cornell 20-13

285: #18 Fernandes L 2-1 #6 Elam - The older Elam brother is coming off an AA finish as well, and was heavily favored in this match. Elam took a 2-0 lead around 40 seconds into the 2d period with a reversal. Fernandes probably tried to hold position too long and should have given up the escape. Elam held the lead by riding out the period. Fernandes' strength is on top, so he took top himself to start the third and rode for the full two minutes, but he was neither able to get back points nor convince the ref to call stalling a second time. A closer match than I expected.

Huge team win: Cornell 20-16

1/30 Rankings

Not much change anywhere, but to the extent there was any change, Shapiro and Cardenas moved up after beating a top 5 opponent. Ungar slipped a hair after getting pinned by Surtin, as did Ramirez in some rankings after getting majored by #1 (plus two other top 5 guys squared off, so the winner (Carr) moved up and the loser has a win over Ramirez.)

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA/Flo  CR
125: Ungar 	17	18	16	 17 	 18 	23 	 2/2	  12
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2/2      NR
141: Cornella	10	10	12	 12	 11	15 	 1/1      12
149: Fernandez	NR	NR	26	 14      NR	31 	 1/1      24
157: Shapiro	 6	 7	 7	  6	  7	 2 	 1/1       9
165: Ramirez	 7	 4	 4        2	  5	 4 	 1/1       3
174: ?????	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     91 	NR/10     NR
184: Foca  	 5	 7 	 7	  9	  5	 3	 1/1       6
197: Cardenas	 5	 7	 7	  6	  8	 5 	 2/2       7
285: Fernandes	17	20	17	 NR	 NR	20 	 5/5      17
TEAM DUAL:	 9	 8	 8	  9	 xx	 7
TEAM NCAA:	 4	 7	 8	  5	 xx	 2

WIN Expected tweaks, but not a lot of movement.
Flo Shapiro/Cardenas bumps also gave us a bump for the team tournament projection, since it puts them on the podium.
Intermat Shapiro bump, as expected.
The Open Mat No significant change because they were crazy high on Fernandez (a puzzler tbh) and Shapiro already. Cardenas gets the bump. Foca for some reason slides a spot but I'm not paying attention to other schools so...
Amateur Wrestling News No love for the big Cardenas win over Mocco.
Wrestlestat The computer loves Shapiro and Foca's strength of schedule.
Coaches' Ranking No updates on this for a while.
Conference Rankings Have not updated. EIWA updates monthly, Flo does it ... unpredictably?

Rolled through Columbia. Doing this off the top of my head.

125: Ungar with a nice win, getting a pair of takedowns. Cornell 3-0
133: Arujau dominating a pretty weak opponent. Cornell 8-0
141: Botello wrestles in place of Cornella who is still recovering from the knee injury in the Missouri dual. Cornell 8-3
149: Fernandez can't quite get the last takedown at the buzzer for the tech, dominant 20-6 MD. Cornell 12-3
157: Shapiro dominant. Cornell 17-3
165: Ramirez dominant. Cornell 22-3
174: Baker got robbed of an early takedown and couldn't pull off the upset. Cornell 22-6
184: Foca with his second loss of the year to Ayzerov. Inexplicable given how they've wrestled against others. Cornell 22-9
197: Cardenas gives up a takedown but still rolls to a major. Cornell 26-9
285: Fernandes no trouble at all and gets a first period pin. Cornell 32-9

Foca loss so puzzling. He nearly got a few takedowns in the first but couldn't close. Ayzerov outwresled him in the second and third.

Bummer of a day in international wrestling. Yianni D was trying to reclaim his spot as the US rep for 65kg against Nick Lee but in the first bout of the best of three, he gave himself a concussion on an early takedown. He was up 3-2 after one period but in the second period he was clearly wobbly, lost 12-3 and forfeited the second match. I assume he'll be back for the Olympic trials in April but I was hoping he'd get Nick Lee back for taking the spot at 2023 Worlds.

2/7 Rankings

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33 (because that's how many go to NCAAs). Whatever credit we thought we might get from winning a dual against #2 Missouri went up in smoke after Mizzou got absolutely blown out by Okie State and their ranking collapsed.

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA/Flo  CR
125: Ungar 	17	18	14	 19 	 NR 	25 	 2/2	  12
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 1	  3	  3 	 1 	 2/2      NR
141: Cornella	10	10	12	 13	 12	16 	 1/1      12
149: Fernandez	NR	29	23	 13      NR	26 	 1/1      24
157: Shapiro	 5	 7	 6	  5	  3	 2 	 1/1       9
165: Ramirez	 7	 4	 4        4	  5	 4 	 1/1       3
174: ?????	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     95* 	NR/10     NR
184: Foca  	 9	10 	 7	  9	  7	 3	 1/1       6
197: Cardenas	 5	 7	 7	  6	  8	 5 	 2/2       7
285: Fernandes	17	18	17	 20	 NR	18 	 5/5      17
TEAM DUAL:	10	 9	 8	 10	 xx	 8
TEAM NCAA:	 8	 7	 5	  5	 xx	 2

WIN Tiny movement individually, aside from Foca, who slides after his loss to Columbia. but the net is a drop in team rankings.
Flo Fernandez finally ranked by Flo. Foca takes a hit here too.
Intermat No slide for Foca. Big bump in tournament projection. Weird.
The Open Mat Also no slide for Foca. Fernandez keeps climbing! Fernandes returns to the rankings.
Amateur Wrestling News Shapiro jumps up, small slide for Foca.
Wrestlestat The computer thinks backup Greg D. is having a better season at 125 and ranks him at 9.
Coaches' Ranking No updates on this for a while.
Conference Rankings Have not updated. EIWA updates monthly, Flo does it ... unpredictably?

* Baker gets most of the starts but Canoyer is also seeing action. The highest ranked among the 174s is technically Hansen (at 73) but he hasn't wrestled in a dual or at 174 in months and has mostly wrestled in Opens at 184.

Big dual against Penn tonight after rolling up Princeton yesterday. We lost only at 174 and got plenty of bonus from our big guns.

Following up on ugarte's post, Cornell beats Penn 26-8 to win its 43rd wrestling title (and maybe the last one decided by dual record.) The dual was closer than you might think from the score, only one bonus point win for Cornell, but still a nice win. Three duals left before post-season, starting with a showdown at NC State next weekend.

Rolled over Penn. In all of the ranked matchups, we won. The two weights where Penn had ranked wrestlers and we didn't (141 (Cornella is injured) and 174 (the "hole" in our lineup)), we lost. Sement was chippy the whole match, aggressively slapping Ramirez's head and got a penalty point at the end of it and was trying to encourage Ramirez to fight, as Ramirez waved and said "bye bye now." Wish Arujau had finished off his third straight major of Colaiocco.

157 - #6 Shapiro W 6-3 #23 Revano [Cornell 3-0]
165 – #4 Ramirez W 5-1 Sement [Cornell 6-0]
174 - Baker L 2-9 #6 Incontrera [Cornell 6-3]
184 - #7 Foca W 3-0 #17 Hale [Cornell 9-3]
197 – #7 Cardenas W 7-0 #24 Urbas [Cornell 12-3]
285 – #12 Fernandes WTF 15-0 Stout [Cornell 17-3]
125 – #16 Ungar W 4-2 #33 Gallagher [Cornell 20-3]
133 – #2 Arujau W 11-4 #9 Colaiocco [Cornell 23-3]
141 - Botello LTF 0-15 #16 Composto [Cornell 23-8]
149 – #23 Fernandez W 8-7 Swisher Cornell wins 26-8

ugarte
Big dual against Penn tonight after rolling up Princeton yesterday. We lost only at 174 and got plenty of bonus from our big guns.

Never did get back to this:

133: #2 Arujau WTF 19-4 Pierson [Cornell 5-0]
141: Botello W 4-2 Martino [Cornell 8-0]
149: #23 Fernandez W 11-7 No. 25 Rivera [Cornell 11-0]
157: #6 Shapiro WTF 20-5 Camillaci [Cornell 16-0]
165: #4 Ramirez WMD 15-3 Bergey [Cornell 20-0]
174: Canoyer L 1-5 Squires [Cornell 20-3]
184: #7 Foca WMD 17-4 #22 Duggan [Cornell 24-3]
197: #7 Cardenas W 4-2 #12 Stout [Cornell 27-3]
285: #17 Fernandes WMD 8-0 #30 Cover [Cornell 31-3]
125: #14 Ungar WMD 10-2 Heethuis [FINAL: Cornell 35-3]

Seems petty but frustrating that Ramirez and Foca didn't win by techs.

We close the season with duals against NC State, Appalachian State and Binghamton. NC State is going to be a tough one. Not a great matchup.

2/13 Rankings

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33 (because that's how many go to NCAAs). As of the time of posting, AWN hasn't posted their new rankings. I'll update when they do.Updated, along with RPI (standard RPI formula, which I think shows what a tough schedule Cornell had this year).

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA/Flo  CR   RPI
125: Ungar 	17	16	13	 19 	 20 	21 	 2/2	  15    3
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2/2       3   NE
141: Cornella	10	10	12	 13	 12	17 	 1/1      11    6
149: Fernandez	NR	28	20	 14      NR	22 	 1/1      20   11
157: Shapiro	 5	 7	 6	  5	  3	 2 	 1/1       7    2
165: Ramirez	 6	 4	 4        6	  5	 4 	 1/1       6    9
174: ?????	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     99* 	NR/13     NR   NR
184: Foca  	 8	10 	 7	  9	  7	 3	 1/1       6    9
197: Cardenas	 5	 7	 7	  6	  8	 5 	 2/2       7    2
285: Fernandes	17	17	17	 19	 NR	18 	 5/5      16   12
TEAM DUAL:	10	10	 8	  9	 xx	 4
TEAM NCAA:	 5	11	 6	  9	 xx	 2

WIN Status quo on the team dual ranking but bounced back to 5 for the tournament. Ramirez and Foca up a notch, which helps a lot in projected team points given their already high rankings.
Flo Couple of people up a tick but the team rankings still slid a bit.
Intermat Tournament projection slides a tick. Not much change except a nice bump for Fernandez.
The Open Mat Weird slip for Ramirez after a couple of "close" matches where he was never threatened.
Amateur Wrestling News Not updated yet (or, more likely, they forgot to post to the website)
Wrestlestat Wildly high team rankings tbh.
Coaches' Ranking/ RPI Updated. Arujau doesn't have enough matches to get an RPI but it doesn't matter since he meets other criteria.
Conference Rankings Have not updated. Flo updated their EIWA rankings last week after I posted.

* Baker gets most of the starts but Canoyer (135) is also seeing action. The highest ranked among the 174s is technically Hansen (at 75) but he hasn't wrestled in a dual or at 174 in months and has mostly wrestled in Opens at 184.

2/19 Rankings

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33 (because that's how many go to NCAAs). I think CR and RPI come out again after this weekend, before the conference tournaments, because they are part of the formula to determine how many automatic bids each conference gets at each weight. They are then released again AFTER the conference tournament but not until they are announced along with the at-large bids (they are part of the at-large formula).

Ungar and Foca both lost in upsets so there was minor slippage. A couple of places moved Cornella a tick because of his layoff. Not much material change elsewhere.

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS(ELO)	EIWA/Flo  CR   RPI
125: Ungar 	19	17	15	 20 	 20 	21 	 2/2	  15    3
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	 2/2       3   NE
141: Cornella	10	10	12	 15	 12	16 	 1/1      11    6
149: Fernandez	NR	28	21	 14      20	25 	 1/1      20   11
157: Shapiro	 5	 7	 6	  5	  3	 1 	 1/1       7    2
165: Ramirez	 6	 4	 4        6	  5	 4 	 1/1       6    9
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     54 	NR/13     NR   NR
184: Foca  	11	11 	 8	  9	  7	 3	 1/1       6    9
197: Cardenas	 6	 7	 7	  6	  7	 5 	 2/2       7    2
285: Fernandes	16	17	17	 19	 20	18 	 5/5      16   12
TEAM DUAL:	10	10	 7	  9	 xx	 4
TEAM NCAA:	 6	 9	 8	 11	 xx	 2

WIN See above.
Flo See above.
Intermat See above.
The Open Mat See above.
Amateur Wrestling News Fernandez and Fernandes join the rankings!
Wrestlestat A great weekend in North Carolina has solidified Baker as the starter and vaulted him up in the WS rankings and above teammate Hansen (who has more recently been a backup at 184).
Conference Rankings Unchanged.
Coaches' Ranking / RPI Unchanged.

This past weekend was the final dual of the season, a home match against Binghamton. The full recap of Senior Day is here. Some notes from dual and the projection:

125: Brett Ungar dominated at Binghamton. Scored a lot. Need him to show more of this aggression against better wrestlers. He likes to keep the score low but his reticence has been a problem. To be fair, he has only one bad loss, but he also doesn't have a signature win to give confidence that he can surprise you. The conference will likely earn enough bids (including one credited to him) that unless he totally duffs the tournament, he'll get an AQ and even if he does duff it, his profile will probably get him an at-large. If he's going to get as close to AA as he did last year he has to (a) get another "easy" draw in the consolation bracket or (b) step up his offense. A first round loss likely dooms his chances so getting his seed as high as possible is critical

133: Vito Arujau rested again this weekend, but he'll back for EIWA. His only loss is to Lehigh's Crookham, and I was about to question whether Crookham will even be there but after missing a month, he tested whatever was bothering him over the weekend and beat a scrub handily. He is going to cruise to the EIWA final, with a caveat. EIWA is weird; it's possible that the matches that both of them skipped will mean very stupid seeding at 133 and set up a semifinal match between the two best wrestlers in the conference (and the national rankings). Arujau has earned a conference allocation and will get an at-large bid regardless of conference performance. Hope whatever has been nagging him isn't a problem at NCAAs.

Meanwhile, we sent a surprising substitute out to wrestle at Binghamton. True frosh Marco Milani, who had been backing up at 125, wrestled in his first dual instead of Ethan Qureshi. I suspect there was a handshake agreement to send out a backup's backup because Binghamton rested their own starter as well and sent out a grad student in his first D-I dual meet, in what would be his final match, and he's from Syracuse so his parents probably came. No mercy, though, as Milani won by tech, 17-1.

141: Vince Cornella is back. Very big deal. His knee injury against Missouri kept him out of the lineup for a month. It looked pretty bad and I wasn't sure how much to believe the word from Coach Grey that he'd be back. Other than a knee wrap, he looked fine and won by major. He doesn't have any bad losses, nor does he have any signature wins. The weight class is competitive but he's still the favorite and he looks to have a seeding at NCAAs in the 12-15 range.

149: Ethan Fernandez continued his surprising season after jumping up to 149 from 133 to fill the gap in the lineup. Easy win at Binghamton and should go into EIWA as the 1 seed. Had some close matches but he's looking like he's going to be in the 18-22 range at NCAAs unless the conference tournament goes awry.

157: Meyer Shapiro took the weekend off. He's going to be the top seed in EIWA and probably a top 5 seed at NCAAs. His blip in December is well behind him.

Wrestling in his stead, Wyatt Yapoujian, in his first dual for the Big Red. At first, this selection confused me because he's a junior. He was probably selected as a representative of his brother, Colton, who was a 5-star recruit who suffered one injury after another and effectively retired from competition before his senior year but stayed on the team and was honored with the other seniors. In his brother's honor, he won a low scoring match, 1-0 with the only point coming from riding time.

165: Julian Ramirez took the week off but he'll be fine for EIWA. Should run through the conference and get a top 5 seed at NCAAs.

In his place, there really wasn't a senior avaialable. His backup at 165 is a frosh who hasn't wrestled, there are no seniors at 157, and while Luke Gorg is listed at 174, my spidey sense tells me that there was no way he was actually making weight given the unlikelihood that he'd get to wrestle in the spring. He's had 12 matches in four years and hadn't seen the mat since November. So we sent out junior Brody Oleksak, who kept it close but lost 4-2 to a top 20 opponent.

174: Benny Baker continues a decent end-of-season run, with his third win in a row, and second over a ranked wrestler. He probably doesn't have the profile to earn a bid for the conference, but he snuck into the top 33 in RPI and if his latest wins (including over CR #31) get him some votes and a place on the CR that would be a neat reward but it's very unlikely. Tough row to hoe to get through the conference bracket - there will probably be five bids available and the top five in the conference have been a cut above - but that's why they play the games.

184: Chris Foca got the only takedown of the match but was a bit underwhelming against Nolan. He's looking at a seed in the 8-12 range and maybe lower if he doesn't win the conference. He's lost to Columbia's Ayezerov twice and has to get over that hump at 184. That said, he doesn't have to worry about getting a bid regardless of how the conference tournament goes, it will just determine how hard the path is.

197: Jacob Cardenas faced another top 10 wrestler in Binghamton's ancient Louie DePrez, who got a surprise medical redshirt that allowed him to trade his assistant coach's suit in for another season on the mat. DePrez dominated the match, a loss for Cardenas that probably makes him the 3 seed at the conference tournament. Cardenas still probably slots in from 7-9 at NCAAs. All of his losses are to top 8 guys and he has a win over Elam and enough top 20 guys that his tough schedule will get his record the respect it deserves.

285: Lewis Fernandes didn't have to face Binghamton's tough heavy and he made short work of the backup. Fernandes has no signature wins and a couple of not-great losses (to go with a very tough schedule), so he's probably going to get a seed in the 18-20 range at NCAAs. The weight class is really deep in EIWA, and 8 bids are likely. He probably won't need to rely on an at-large bid.

We'll find out the allocations and the updated CR and official RPI in the coming weeks, in advance of the EIWA tournament at Bucknell on March 8-9. Cornell probably earned the conference bids at every weight except 174 and it's not impossible that we could send 10 to the big show. Once we get there, we will probably have four guys ranked in the top 8 (Arujau, Shapiro, Ramirez and Cardenas) with Foca and Cornella sitting right outside the podium seeds and looking dangerous.

This upcoming EIWA tournament is Cornell's last, as the Ivies have decided to take their branding and go home, leaving both conferences with automatic bids but walking away from a cool longstanding rivalry with Lehigh. It's a bummer (unless they regularly start holding the tournament at Columbia).

Excerpted from today’s Rochester D&C:

Elijah Diakomihalis , an undefeated junior at Hilton, and three seniors on wrestling teams in Section V won state titles in Albany to close a long loop of workouts, drills at practices and workouts away from school:

• Diakomihalis , a state runner-up in 2023, improved his record to 46-0 while on his way to the Division I 190-pound state title, his first.

• Diakomihalis : He was dominant to the point where he seemed to roll up his four opponents like a mat after the end of a meet. The No. 1 seed had a bye then won by technical fall 22-6 after 3 minutes, 51, by pin after 46 seconds, another pin (:39) and by a score of 13-0 in the final, a major decision over Buffalo St. Francis sophomore Zachary Caldwell.

2/29 rankings and conference bid allocations

Coaches' Rankings, RPI and the bid allocations for EIWA are out. I'd have posted all of this hours ago but in-between filling in all the services' ranking updates and the 3pm NCAA press release I got logged out and threw down my mouse and now I'm restarting. After the conference tournaments, the NCAA announces the final rankings and RPI along with the names of the wrestlers awarded at-large bids.

Very little movement in the Cornell rankings, though Ungar has fallen out of a few top 20s.

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33.

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS	WBP	EIWA/Flo  CR   RPI  Bids
125: Ungar 	NR	18	15	 20 	 NR 	21 	  9	2/2	  15    4   5
133: Arujau	 1	 2	 2	  3	  3 	 1 	  3	2/2        3   NE   5
141: Cornella	10	 9	12	 15	 12	16 	 13	1/1       12   13   4
149: Fernandez	NR	28	21	 13      20	20 	 16	1/1       21    9   4
157: Shapiro	 5	 7	 6	  5	  3	 1 	  2	1/1        6    1   3
165: Ramirez	 7	 3	 3        5	  4	 4 	  5	1/1        3    7   5
174: Baker	NR	NR	NR	 NR	 NR     53 	 41	?/8       NR   32   6
184: Foca  	11	12 	 7	  9	  7	 4	  7	1/1        7   10   7
197: Cardenas	 7	 8	 8	  7	  8	 7 	  6	2/3        8    2   6
285: Fernandes	16	18	16	 19	 20	18 	 18	5/5       17   13   8
TEAM DUAL:	10	 9	 8	  8	 xx	 2	  5
TEAM NCAA:	10	10	 5	  8	 xx	 2	  6

WIN See above.
Flo See above.
Intermat See above.
The Open Mat See above.
Amateur Wrestling News See above.
Wrestling by Pirate Dual Impact Index I'd forgotten about this, but here it is just in time for the allocations, etc. Forum stalwart Seton Hall Pirate's formula likes Cornell a lot. He also confirmed that everyone but Baker earned an at-large spot for Cornell. FTR, his rankings put Baker at 41, but that's still 8th in the conference. I'm feeling good about his late season run and his chances in Lewisburg.
Wrestlestat See above. Way overrated in dual/tournament rankings but it's nice to see anyway.
Conference Rankings EIWA hasn't updated, but I suppose these will be reflected in the seeds soon enough.
Coaches' Ranking / RPI Looking good. Baker got onto the RPI board. Possible that a 7th place showing in a 6 bid conference may earn him an at-large, especially if he pulls off a decent upset. Everyone else is expected, based on these numbers, to qualify for a trip to NCAAs.

Not going to check around for rankings because who cares? The tournaments are this weekend. Along those lines, EIWA seeds are out, so here's my capsule tournament preview.

          Seed Bids My thoughts
Ungar      2    5   Ungar will get a bid regardless of his performance but falling short of the final would be disappointing.
Arujau     2    5   Arujau will get a bid regardless, but he gets a chance at revenge against Lehigh's Crookham, his only loss of the year.
Cornella   2    4   Cornella will get a bid regardless. The top 4 are a notch above the rest of the field with a 2022 AA in Composto at 4.
Fernandez  1    4   Fernandez will get a bid regardless. Not a very strong bracket with a tricky opponent in Swisher the 4 seed.
Shapiro    1    3   Shapiro will get a bid regardless but anything short of a title will be disappointing and be bad for his NCAA seed.
Ramirez    1    5   Everything I said for Shapiro... ditto.
Baker      8    6   Baker almost certainly needs to finish top 6 to get a bid. Tough row to hoe, but not impossible. Wrestling well lately.
Foca       1    7   Foca will get a bid regardless and is the clear class of the bracket but for Ayzerov at 5 who has inexplicably beaten him twice.
Cardenas   2    6   Cardenas will get a bid regardless. The top 3 at the weight are all AA contenders and he's lost to 1 and 3. Revenge coming?
Fernandes  5    8   Fernandes will get a bid regardless. EIWA is really deep at the weight and with 8 bids a ton of margin for ever. 
                    Would be nice to see him beat someone rated higher than him, which I don't know that he's ever done even though he almost 
                    never gets upset.

The tournament kicks off on Friday at 10:30 and will be streamed on FloSports, which is a subscription site. (I think they only go by year; they do have a some hockey from a conference I don't recall and a lot of non-revenue sports if that's a saving grace.

We have returning champions in Arujau, Cornella, Ramirez, Foca and Cardenas; Ungar is a returning finalist. We're the favorite, going away. That said, we did lose the dual meet to Lehigh and they have the top seeds at 125, 133, 197 and 285, so they're strong. Still, ours to lose.

Flo now has a monthly option, but it is pretty expensive -- $30 I think.

nvm - i started a new thread for the postseason

Final rankings and Seeds

The final rankings are about where you'd expect after the conference performance.
Ungar, Arujau, shapiro and Ramirez didn't change much because they performed as expected. Cornella slipped a bit because he got hurt at went 1-2 at Easterns and his health is suspect; see also, Foca. Cardenas and Fernandes hopped a couple of slots because they beat people just in front of them at Easterns. Fernandez jumped into the rankings that only went to 20 who hadn't acknowledged him yet but not much higher because 149 isn't a very strong weight for EIWA. Baker, on the other hand, is now ranked by everyone that goes to 33 after beating a then-top-10 wrestler twice to finish third at EIWA.

The official Coaches Ranking and RPI are out and since, they're part of the seeding formula it's no surprise that they look a lot like the NCAA seeds. You can see the full bracket here. The NCAA tournment kicks off on March 21.

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33.

		WIN	Flo	Intermat OpenMat AWN	WS	CR   RPI  Seed
125: Ungar 	NR	17	18	 20 	 NR 	21 	19    5   17
133: Arujau	 3	 2	 3	  3	  3 	 3 	 3    5    6
141: Cornella	20	18	18	 17	 15	20 	22   13   24
149: Fernandez	20	26	15	 14      20	13 	18    8    9
157: Shapiro	 3	 3	 3	  2	  2	 2 	 3    1    3
165: Ramirez	 7	 3	 3        5	  4	 5 	 4    7    3
174: Baker	NR	22	24	 NR	 NR     26 	27   26   26
184: Foca  	13	15 	15	 11	  7	 6	13   12   14
197: Cardenas	 5	 5	 6	  5	  6	 5 	 5    3    5
285: Fernandes	14	15	16	 17	 16	13 	14   12   15
TEAM NCAA:	 8	 5	 4	  5	 xx	 3