Wrestling 2025-26

[ugarte]

Another modest recruiting update: the Ironman HS wrestling tournament is in progress. We have one wrestler in the finals at 175 and two in the 7th place match (138 and 150) and two more wrestlers finishing one match shy of the podium (150 and 157).

At 175, Joseph Jeter beat Nick Singer 6-4. Coming into the match, Singer was ranked #1; Jeter #2. They had split their two prior meetings. Jeter is #19 on Flo's all-weights "Big Board" for 2026 and Singer is #4 for 2027 (and headed to Iowa).

At 138, Evan Stanley won by medical forfeit to take 7th place. Stanley was the 11 seed and #96 on the 2027 Big Board.

At 150, Tyler Traves won 6-1 (SV) to take 7th place. Traves was the 6 seed. He isn't on the Big Board, but outperformed Michael Turi (36) in the same bracket. Turi is a fellow Cornell recruit graduating this Spring and lost in R12.

[mountainred]

At 150, Tyler Traves won 6-1 (SV) to take 7th place. Traves was the 6 seed. He isn't on the Big Board, but outperformed Michael Turi (36) in the same bracket. Turi is a fellow Cornell recruit graduating this Spring and lost in R12.

Could be an interesting battle in the room for the next few seasons.

[ugarte]

At 150, Tyler Traves won 6-1 (SV) to take 7th place. Traves was the 6 seed. He isn't on the Big Board, but outperformed Michael Turi (36) in the same bracket. Turi is a fellow Cornell recruit graduating this Spring and lost in R12.

Could be an interesting battle in the room for the next few seasons.

who knows ... joy and shapiro have 149 and 157 locked down for a couple of years. parentin looks like the best candidate for 165 (barring the other guys growing into the weight).

In any event... Cornella is back in the rankings at Flo, but only at Flo (WIN never took him out and also never dropped Shapiro, who they have at 5). Saunders is still in the chart because Cornella isn't being ranked but between Cornella's return at 141 and Joy's rocket to #2 at 149, he appears to be an odd man out. Saunders appears squeezed for the backup role too, with Bouyssou seemingly better able to handle the cut to 141 and Ethan Fernandez also returning to 149 after a semester off. Shapiro is the returning 800 lb. gorilla at 157.

Code Select Expand

                Flo WIN IM TOM AWN WSt SHP CR   RPI
125: Milani NR NR 33 NR xx 51 35 --   --
133: Ferrara 16 10 13 15 11 11 11 --   --
141: Saunders xx xx 32 NR NR 44 31^ --   --
141: Cornella 12 15 xx xx xx 26 10^ --   --
149: Joy 2 2 2 2 2 3 1 --   --
157: Rogers NR xx NR NR xx 65 26 --   --
165: Cerchio NR NR 28 NR NR 63 36 --   --
174: Ruiz 2 2 2 2 2 5 1^ --   --
184: Hansen  26 NR 31 NR NR 29 25 --   --
197: Hanning NR NR NR NR NR 56 41 --   -- 
285: Davis NR NR 29 NR NR 31 31 --   --
TEAM NCAA: 9 8 10 9 -- 11 14 --   --
TEAM DUAL:      22 11 18 17 -- 24 41 --   --

Flo Ivy rankings: not updated
125: Milani* 2
133: Ferrara 1
141: Saunders* 4
149: Joy 2
157: Rogers* 3
165: Cerchio 3
174: Ruiz 1
184: Hansen 3
197: Hanning 4
285: Davis 2
* probably replaced in the fall.

Flo ranks to 33.
WIN ranks to 20. TK
Intermat ranks to 33.
Open Mat ranks to 20.
AWN ranks to 20.
WrestleStat ELO updated.
SHP DII SHP's Dual Impact Index is out! Joy and Ruiz both #1, though Ruiz doesn't have enough matches yet for an official DII ranking. (explainer)

CR and RPI won't be out for a while.

[Ken711]

After just one season in Ithaca, Anthony Knox is changing course.

The four-time New Jersey State champion wrestler on Thursday, Dec. 18, announced he'd decommitted from Cornell University.

"It's with very careful consideration I have decided to de commit from Cornell University. This was not an easy decision and I truly do love everyone involved with the Cornell Wrestling Program. However, I'm excited to see what this process has in store for me."

Knox didn't provide a reason for the shift. He was not on the Cornell wrestling roster as of press time and apparently hadn't wrestled in a match yet this season.

https://www.aol.com/news/4x-nj-state-champ-wrestler-021511895.html

[ugarte]

Knox didn't provide a reason for the shift...

This sucks. The first rumor was Virginia Tech but now looking like he's staying in his backyard and going to rutgers. Most likely reason for the shift is NIL money. Also really sucks because getting Knox probably scared off other very good 125s.

During his greyshirt year Knox has been very good. He dominated five of his six matches - against people he'd be expected to handle - and only lost a close one (7-4) to Nic Bouzakis, who was a top recruit like Knox in '22, went to Ohio State and is currently ranked in the top 5.

[scoop85]

Knox didn't provide a reason for the shift...

This sucks. The first rumor was Virginia Tech but now looking like he's staying in his backyard and going to rutgers. Most likely reason for the shift is NIL money. Also really sucks because getting Knox probably scared off other very good 125s.

During his greyshirt year Knox has been very good. He dominated five of his six matches - against people he'd be expected to handle - and only lost a close one (7-4) to Nic Bouzakis, who was a top recruit like Knox in '22, went to Ohio State and is currently ranked in the top 5.

The winds are increasingly shifting against Cornell and the Ivies being able to compete nationally in even "niche" sports like wrestling. Makes me even more grateful for our lax championship.

[BearLover]

Knox didn't provide a reason for the shift...

This sucks. The first rumor was Virginia Tech but now looking like he's staying in his backyard and going to rutgers. Most likely reason for the shift is NIL money. Also really sucks because getting Knox probably scared off other very good 125s.

During his greyshirt year Knox has been very good. He dominated five of his six matches - against people he'd be expected to handle - and only lost a close one (7-4) to Nic Bouzakis, who was a top recruit like Knox in '22, went to Ohio State and is currently ranked in the top 5.

The winds are increasingly shifting against Cornell and the Ivies being able to compete nationally in even "niche" sports like wrestling. Makes me even more grateful for our lax championship.

Yes, but also I think "NIL" is thrown around too lazily to explain recruitment decisions in non-football/men's basketball. (Maybe it's true in wrestling, not really sure.) At least in hockey, programs almost universally lose money and have little donor support. There's tremendous pressure to allocate spending towards keeping football and basketball afloat (see eg. BC). Just because we lose a player to Big State School doesn't indicate NIL was the reason, at all. Again, could have been the case here, ugarte knows better than I do, but I've seen people scream NIL in other sports when the funding just doesn't add up.

Anyway, I've been beating this drum for awhile but the Ivies have the richest alums in the country and could easily buy players if they wanted to. The schools themselves also can't really do anything to prevent an NIL fund from popping up. It's up to the donors to do something about this if the Ivies want to stay relevant in the national landscape.

[ugarte]

NIL in a meaningful way in wrestling is confined to a small number of programs - basically the top of the B1G, OK State and a few ACC schools - but i do think the money for the best guys i ssignificant. VT is one of the ACC schools and I'd be shocked if Rob Koll wasn't still capable of tickling donors the right way to open their wallets for UNC. Knox is a guy who would draw real money. He's almost certainly going to be in the AA/natty conversation as soon as he's rostered. I'm sort of interested in seeing if he ends up enrolling somewhere in January. If he is headed to Rutgers he'd be better than their current starter.

I should also point out that the scuttlebutt on Knox is that it wasn't an NIL issue (though his current recruitment might turn on that). The whispers are that it was an admissions issue. I don't know what his academic profile is but he has an upcoming trial for a fight he got into at Regionals in NJ last year. You might remember me writing about it at the time. Both he and his father went into the risers and started throwing hands with fans from a rival school. Whatever it was, the desires of the athletic department were overruled. As for the team, apparently Isaiah Cortez - who I thought would compete for the starting spot at 133 - can cut to 125 and is expected to start. He's a good one too. He'll also be in the conversation for AA but not quite the same buzz from the experts.

[ugarte]

Heading into the Southern Scuffle, everyone (except Greg Diakomihalis at 125) has returned to the mat, so everyone is back in the rankings. The Scuffle is an open tournament that allows schools to send multiple wrestlers at each weight, which Cornell is using as an informal non-binding wrestle-off for a number of weights. Here is how the roster shakes out heading into the Spring:

125: Greg Diakomihalis (constantly injured, high ceiling) v. Marcello Milani (returning NCAA qualifier)
133: Brett Ungar (two-time R12 at 125) v Tyler Ferrara (returning NQ, currently ranked 10-15)
141: Looked like it might be a battle but Joshua Saunders is already wrestling at 149, ceding the weight to Vince Cornella. Saunders had already lost the primary spot to Gabriel Bouyssou, maybe because it became increasingly hard to cut to 141.
149: Saunders would actually probably be #3 at 149. Ethan Fernandez returns to the lineup after a semester off and should slot in as Jaxon Joy's primary backup. Maybe he technically can fight for the starting spot but I doubt it.
157: Meyer Shapiro is back. No competition here. Benny Rogers moved up to 165 for last weekend's duals (more below) and...
165: Louie Cerchio has been good but not great to date. It's possible that Rogers' move up last weekend means competition for the starting spot. I'd be surprised if Rogers bumped Cerchio but it's not impossible.
174: Simon Ruiz has been out for a bit with a nagging injury but should be back for the Scuffle. We don't have anyone who can really fill his shoes. Big drop off to Evan Canoyer or Brady Oleksak.
184-285: Christian Hansen, Aiden Hanning and Ashton Davis are all comfortable starters. Hansen has earned his way into the rankings; Davis, out of them. Hanning was never expected to be ranked afaik. We have solid upper weights coming in next year but this year they've been struggling.

In last week's competition, we split a pair of duals with Illinois (L 14-21) and Arkansas-Little Rock (W 31-10). Ruiz was out for the weekend, but if he's in we likely flip the Illinois dual to a 17-16 W or better. UALR was also sitting one of their stars; if he competes that win is more like 25-14.

Shapiro had a tight 2-1 win against Kannon Webster, a top-10 wrestler for Illinois before dominating his UALR opponent. Ungar returned and lost a competitive match to Lucas Byrd, the returning national champ from Illinois; Ferrara came in for the UALR match and won easily. No real surprises except we got a nice win from Hansen against Illinois and a bad loss for Davis against UALR. Davis is going to have to do some real work to get back into the rankings but he's still a good bet to repeat as Ivy champ.

The tight win over Webster at mostly put Shapiro just ahead of wherever that ranker had Webster and didn't vault him ahead of the very deep class at 157 to his usual spot in the top 2. Cornella also returned to all ballots and, like Ferrara, is ranked a hair below the top tier.

Code Select Expand

                Flo WIN IM TOM AWN WSt SHP CR   RPI
125: Milani NR NR NR NR NR 50 36 --   --
133: Ferrara 15 10 12 14 12 10 13* --   --
141: Cornella 13 14 13 13 14 19 9 --   --
149: Joy 2 2 2 2 2 3 1 --   --
157: Shapiro 6 5 7 1 2 1 1^ --   --
165: Cerchio NR NR NR NR NR 65 36 --   --
174: Ruiz 2 2 2 2 4 5 1^ --   --
184: Hansen  20 NR 30 NR NR 28 23 --   --
197: Hanning NR NR NR NR NR 61 39 --   -- 
285: Davis NR NR NR NR NR 45 36 --   --
TEAM NCAA: 8 8 8 8 -- 8 10 --   --
TEAM DUAL:      22 11 18 17 -- 11 23 --   --
* Ungar, after one match, is at 6 in SHP's DII but until the starter changes I'm leaving Ferrara in the chart.
^ Ruiz and Shapiro don't have enough matches to calculate DII, but placed where their provisional ratings would have them.

Flo Ivy rankings: not updated since 11/20
125: Milani* 2
133: Ferrara 1
141: Saunders* 4
149: Joy 2
157: Rogers* 3
165: Cerchio 3
174: Ruiz 1
184: Hansen 3
197: Hanning 4
285: Davis 2
* probably replaced in the fall.

Flo ranks to 33.
WIN ranks to 20.
Intermat ranks to 33.
Open Mat ranks to 20.
AWN ranks to 20.
WrestleStat ELO updated.
SHP DII Three wrestlers currently considered #1 by the machine, though two don't yet have enough matches for it to really count. (explainer)

CR and RPI won't be out for a while.

[dag14]

ugarte -- Thank you for another great update.

[ugarte]

We're almost all back? Maybe? We have two dual meets on Saturday - at Lehigh and Bucknell (with a 2ish hour drive between the two), and Coach Grey says we're going to have the full lineups but I feel like I've heard that before. Ruiz hasn't wrestled since October and it's unclear why other starters have been sitting out. Honestly, kind of a bummer that wrestling has - not only at Cornell - started to shift emphasis to optimizing for the postseason instead of season-long competition being a chance to see your stars over and over.

In any event, we had a lot of starters sit out the Southern Scuffle (hosted by UTC over the weekend) but we did get some good results out of it and at least there's more wrestling to base updated rankings on. Starters at 149, 157, 165, 174 and 197 didn't compete and we still took 7th, which is interesting.

At the Scuffle, Vince Cornella (141) had a couple of surprisingly close matches but finished with a dominant win over a 2x All-American in the final - 7-2 over Penn's CJ Composto. His SF win was also over a ranked wrestler.

Greg Diakomihalis (125) returned to competition and didn't look *great* against the better opposition he facedin Chattanooga but he did finish in 4th (ahead of previous starter Milani). Christian Hansen (184) had a decent tournament, losing only to a Penn State backup (who'd be starting in most of the country) and a coin flip match against an App State kid for 3d place. He'll have to win those matches in March if he wants to make the podium.

Tyler Ferrara (133) lost in the QF against a very annoying (stylistically) opponent and he's going to have to learn to deal with the idiosyncratic guys to go as far as he wants to. After one win in the consolation bracket that (a) guaranteed him an 8th place finish and (b) advanced him farther than teammate Brett Ungar, he was withdrawn from the remainder of the tournament. Suggests to me that Ferrara has won the starting spot going forward in this quasi-wrestleoff, not that he has any actual injury.

Greg D. has been substituted in as starter by almost all rankers. He jumped into all of the top-33 rankings and one of the top-20s. Cornella's win over Composto gave him a boost to the top-8 (mostly).

2x NQ Ethan Fernandez returned to action but was underwhelming. Nothing suggests that he has a chance to displace Jaxon Joy in the starting lineup at 149.

College Wrestling Report rankings have been added to the chart.

Code Select Expand

                Flo WIN IM TOM AWN CWR WSt SHP CR   RPI
125: Greg D. 26 NR 33 18 NR 32 19 32* --   --
133: Ferrara 21 19 16 19 13 14 16 14 --   --
141: Cornella 5 8 6 7 9 5 9 6 --   --
149: Joy 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 1 --   --
157: Shapiro 6 5 7 1 3 3 1 1^ --   --
165: Cerchio NR NR NR NR NR NR 68 36 --   --
174: Ruiz 2 2 2 2 4 2 5 1^ --   --
184: Hansen  21 20 30 NR NR 28 25 25 --   --
197: Hanning NR NR NR NR NR NR 67 39 --   -- 
285: Davis 31 NR NR NR NR 32 42 32 --   --
TEAM NCAA: 8 8 8 7 -- 7 7 10 --   --
TEAM DUAL:      22 11 18 17 -- -- 9 26 --   --

* Greg D. not listed as the starter but this is where he'd be if SHP slotted him for Milani like everyone else did (and I assume he will after this weekend).
^ Ruiz and Shapiro don't have enough matches to calculate DII, but placed where their provisional ratings would have

Flo ranks to 33.
WIN ranks to 20.
Intermat ranks to 33.
Open Mat ranks to 20.
AWN ranks to 20.
CWRranks to 33.
WrestleStat ELO updated.
SHP DII Three wrestlers currently considered #1 by the machine, though two don't yet have enough matches for it to really count. (explainer)

CR and RPI will be out in a week or two. These are factors in at-large bids and tournament seeding.

[Ken711]

flowrestling

After spending the fall in greyshirt at Cornell, Anthony Knox has committed to Rutgers for the 2026-27 season.

[ugarte]

flowrestling

After spending the fall in greyshirt at Cornell, Anthony Knox has committed to Rutgers for the 2026-27 season.

not a big surprise that he returned close to home. rutgers is a great program.