NCAA wrestling

[Al DeFlorio]

Cam Simaz takes 3rd place with an overtime takedown.

Seems to me Hudson Taylor beat Cam easily earlier this season.  Cam's come a long way.

[Jacob '06]

Dake won the championship pretty handily. Had an amazing scramble from his back to getting a takedown in neutral in the first period, then just dominated on top for most of the match.

[Al DeFlorio]

Iowa's Borschel decisions Lewnes, 5-2

[Jacob '06]

Iowa's Borschel decisions Lewnes, 5-2

What does the team score look like? I can't seem to view it on my computer.

EDIT: Nevermind, intermat says we've locked up second. Pretty impressive.

[Al DeFlorio]

Iowa's Borschel decisions Lewnes, 5-2

What does the team score look like? I can't seem to view it on my computer.

Dunno.  We're well behind Iowa but, I think, comfortably in second.  Hope I'm right.

[Al DeFlorio]

Final team standings here: http://www.ncaa.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/ncaa/sports/m-wrestl/auto_pdf/Wres-D1-2010Standings

Iowa 134.5, Cornell 90, Iowa State 75

[Roy 82]

Wow. That is a proud accomplishment.

[ugarte]

The Dake match was awesome; Marion never had a chance. The Lewnes match, less so; Borschel was a beast on top - Lewnes never really even came close to escaping until it hardly mattered.

This was a hell of a showing by the team, though: a champion, a runner-up, a third and a fourth plus three guys in the round of 12. A second place finish overall - best in team history - is an amazing accomplishment.

And even the graduation of Nickerson and Arnone may not slow this team down. Nickerson's backup at 125 - Frank Perrelli - would have been an All-American contender himself. Grey, Dake, Kerber, Lewnes, Bosak and Simaz are all back. An amazing freshman class is coming in and they are expected to fill in the middle weights where the team struggled this year. Jochym will return after his redshirt year to replace Arnone at heavyweight. Meagher should return from his injury. Rob Koll has built a hell of a program.

[billhoward]

Another thing that makes wrestling such a tough sport: You could be the nation's second best wrestler at your weight class but you don't get a chance to wrestle. In tennis you can drop down to play second or third singles. In hockey you're on the second line. (OK, you could have been Scrivens' backup.) Here you're stuck unless you want to change your weight.

[Chuck Henderson]

As a little further context on the second place finish, the most recent, and only, champion from the East was Penn State in 1953.  I knew that; but I'm having trouble finding team standings by year.  Does anyone know how many times eastern teams have finished second?  1953 was also the year when Cornell had two national champions, Don Dickason and Frank Bettucci, the tournament's most outstanding wrestler, who was from IHS.  Somehow I remember that team well; I went to all the home meets back then.  I thought there was a real chance this year for two champions (or three), even knowing everything had to break just right.

[ithacat]

I'm not sure if the other placement matches are on TV today (Al?) but the finals are on ESPN at 7:30.

ithacat, this team could have won the national championship - it required us to do as well as we possibly could, though, and Iowa had to slip up. But we had some disappointing results (what team doesn't?) and AFAIK Iowa did not slip up at all (oh, right). Iowa has 4 finalists and 4 more guys on the podium.

Wow, that's impressive -- are they human? A great weekend for the Big Red.