2014-15 Wrestling thread

[mountainred]

I know some of you are in the Albany/Troy area, so if you feel like checking out the Cornell wrestling team, they're going up against NC State, Virginia Tech and Kutztown on Saturday in the Journeymen/ASICS Duals at HVCC.

On behalf of my parents and brother -- all of whom are WVU graduates -- the Big Red face West Virginia not Virginia Tech.  About the only mistake that would have been more unforgivable to them is confusing WVU with Pitt.  :-P

[ugarte]

I know some of you are in the Albany/Troy area, so if you feel like checking out the Cornell wrestling team, they're going up against NC State, Virginia Tech and Kutztown on Saturday in the Journeymen/ASICS Duals at HVCC.

On behalf of my parents and brother -- all of whom are WVU graduates -- the Big Red face West Virginia not Virginia Tech.  About the only mistake that would have been more unforgivable to them is confusing WVU with Pitt.  :-P

lol i knew it was WV too, just couldn't get VT out of my head.

[mountainred]

I know some of you are in the Albany/Troy area, so if you feel like checking out the Cornell wrestling team, they're going up against NC State, Virginia Tech and Kutztown on Saturday in the Journeymen/ASICS Duals at HVCC.

On behalf of my parents and brother -- all of whom are WVU graduates -- the Big Red face West Virginia not Virginia Tech.  About the only mistake that would have been more unforgivable to them is confusing WVU with Pitt.  :-P

lol i knew it was WV too, just couldn't get VT out of my head.

No worries ugarte.  First dual in the books:  43-4 over D2 Kutztown.  Kutztown's heavy is the reigning D2 champ and made easy work of George Famutimi foe only blemish.  Falls for Shanaman, Taylor, Dean, and Congenie.

[mountainred]

Cornell over NC State 20-13.  Tough day for the guys who weren't expected to start, but Duke Pickett with a huge win.

[ugarte]

Cornell over NC State 20-13.  Tough day for the guys who weren't expected to start, but Duke Pickett with a huge win.

Cornell beat Virginia Tech West Virginia 26-9, with two surprising losses from a couple of our ranked wrestlers. Fortunately, they were more than offset by some big wins from some of our fill-ins and a surprise quick pin by our heavyweight. I really want our starters back!

[mountainred]

Cornell over NC State 20-13.  Tough day for the guys who weren't expected to start, but Duke Pickett with a huge win.

Cornell beat Virginia Tech West Virginia 26-9, with two surprising losses from a couple of our ranked wrestlers. Fortunately, they were more than offset by some big wins from some of our fill-ins and a surprise quick pin by our heavyweight. I really want our starters back!

I see what you did there!  All in all a good day, but not a great one.  Still, more positives than negatives.
Positives:  Garrett, Villalonga and Dean all took care of business the way they are supposed to.  Duke Pickett's win over a guy who was ranked slightly above him.  Jake Taylor's two wins.  JAP's pin.
Negatives:  Bennett looked, and I quote the coach, "slow and uninspired."  Mark Grey didn't look quite right.  Bricker Dixon is very tough, but overmatched at 133.  You could see that he knew what he should do, but just wasn't strong enough to do it.

With luck, we'll see Realbuto and Palacio back at the Garden.  We'll need them for those two duals.

[ugarte]

With luck, we'll see Realbuto and Palacio back at the Garden.  We'll need them for those two duals.

Yeah, these 1-0 Shanaman wins are ... interesting.

[ugarte]

Cornell puts 4 into the semis at the Cliff Keen Open in Las Vegas: Nahshon Garrett, Chris Villalonga, Gabe Dean and Jace Bennett. Taylor Simaz with a nice run is still alive in the wrestlebacks.  

Disappointing performances from Nark Grey and Jesse Shanaman. I think Pickett had a tough draw. All three lost in the consolation bracket before the medal round.

Some thought that Realbuto and Palacio would be back for this, but no. Also, we didn't wrestle anyone at 133 or 285 but no reason has been given as far as I know.

[ugarte]

Cornell puts 4 into the semis at the Cliff Keen Open in Las Vegas: Nahshon Garrett, Chris Villalonga, Gabe Dean and Jace Bennett. Taylor Simaz with a nice run is still alive in the wrestlebacks.  

Disappointing performances from Nark Grey and Jesse Shanaman. I think Pickett had a tough draw. All three lost in the consolation bracket before the medal round.

Some thought that Realbuto and Palacio would be back for this, but no. Also, we didn't wrestle anyone at 133 or 285 but no reason has been given as far as I know.

Simaz lost his early consolation match and was eliminated.

Garrett and Villalonga cruise into the finals.

Dean is upset by the #8 wrestler but fought back to get into the third place match.

Bennett was pinned in his semifinal match by the #1 wrestler in the country, but pinned his next opponent, so he'll be in the third place match as well.

1st place:

125: #2 Garrett v #6 Dance (Virginia Tech)
149: #6 Villalonga v UR Pantaleo (Michigan)

3d Place:
184: #1 Dean v #14 Zillmer (N.D. State)
197: #18 Bennett v #7 Snyder (Ohio State)

The matches start at 3pm Pacific.

[ugarte]

125: #2 Garrett v #6 Dance (Virginia Tech)
149: #6 Villalonga v UR Pantaleo (Michigan)

3d Place:
184: #1 Dean v #14 Zillmer (N.D. State)
197: #18 Bennett v #7 Snyder (Ohio State)

Garrett and Villalonga both win their matches for first place, which was a huge relief because...

the once-invincible Dean lost badly to Zillmer, capping off a shockingly disappointing tournament. He barely escaped his QF match, lost in the semis, won his first consolation match by only two points and then was gave up three takedowns without recording one in the 3d place match.

And then Bennett got whipped in his 3d place match too. To be fair, he was the underdog, but he was losing the whole way and Snyder spent the last period taking him down and then letting him go so he could take him down again to get a Major Decision.

[semsox]

Wonder if Dean got injured at some point and was just battling through it. Very odd to see someone as dominant as he had been to just fall-off so dramatically.

[ugarte]

Cornell, still not at full strength, rolls over #11 Edinboro (23-14) and Northern Iowa (35-4).

Edinboro has a murderer's row at 133-141-149, with the #1, #2 and #3 wrestlers, respectively, at those weight classes. We are currently weak at 133 ad 141 and Edinboro took advantage, with a tech at 133 and a pin at 141. We have our own potential All-American at 149 in Chris Villalonga and he kept it close but couldn't pull out the win. Other than that, though? Cornell won everything and finished up 23-14.

Our studs, #2 Nahshon Garrett at 125 and suddenly struggling #7 Gabe Dean both won, but not in the dominating manner we've come to expect. Dean was taken to overtime by the #14 wrestler and Garrett fell just short of a major. I'm a little worried about Dean, to be honest. I hope he's nursing an injury/illness because the alternative is that opponents have identified a flaw in his technique that he hasn't compensated for yet.

The best news to come out of the Edinboro match was the return of #6 Dylan Palacio from a Fall semester spent playing for the soccer team. He majored his opponent at 165 with apparent ease. Welcome back, buddy.

The Northern Iowa match was a romp, with Cornell tearing through a lineup that only fields one ranked wrestler, who has the misfortune of being in Garrett's weight class. Dean got a pin, calming my nerves a bit, and we didn't lose until the heavyweight match, where Jacob Aiken-Phillips got whipped.


We got nice two-win days from Duke Pickett at 174 and Jace Bennett at 197, and Craig Eifert, filling in for the still-convalescing Brian Realbuto at 157, won both of his matches as well.

Mark Grey will apparently be trying to cut back down to 133 since he was not handling 141 well at all. It takes a while to "qualify" at a lower weight, so Bricker Dixon wrestled at 133 today. Dixon lost the match he was definitely going to lose then rebounded for a win against Northern Iowa. At 141, Ryan Dunphy returned from a semester off, but was thrown into a tough spot against Edinboro. For the Northern Iowa match, Nick Arujau stepped in at 141 and dominated his opponent.

Things look pretty good for the future if Grey can get to 133 and Realbuto comes back at full strength.

[ugarte]

Tough weekend at the Southern Scuffle for the Big Red.

Gabe Dean (184) appears back in Gabe Dean form, rolling through the tournament and pinning the 4 seed from last years NCAA tournament in the finals.

Nahshon Garrett (125) cruised into the finals where he faced Alan Waters, the man he beat for third place in 2013. Waters took a redshirt year but I guess he's back in top form, since he got a late reversal and rode out Garrett for the 3-1 win.

Our two 3 seeds - Brian Realbuto (157) and Dylan Palacio (165) - both crashed out of the tournament in the round of 12 and failed to medal, including a loss by fall in the R12. It was Realbuto's first competition since his injury at the NCAA tournament, so I should probably relax especially since his two losses came against two tough wrestlers, both from Penn State. One ended up finishing in 2d place (a greyshirt; goddamn that team is deep) and the other finished in 4th. Realbuto did have a convincing win over the #10 wrestler in his penultimate match, so I should focus on that.

Palacio spent the fall playing soccer so he may not be in peak form yet either. The two wrestlers he lost to were both ranked below him but ended up finishing in 4th and 5th with other good wins.

A bright spot was Jace Bennett (197), who came into the tournament as the 10 seed and despite dropping his first match, fought through the bracket for a 5th place finish with a slight hiccup in the consolation semifinal, which he lost in a first period fall.

Other seeded wrestlers were Mark Grey (7th at 133) and Duke Pickett (12th at 174).

Pickett won a pair of matches before getting pinned by the 3 seed. In the consolation bracket he won one match but defaulted out of the second with an injury.

Grey won two matches to get to the quarterfinals before losing in OT to the 2 seed, then dropping his first consolation match to the 8 seed, missing the medal stand.

At 141, Nick Arujau won his first two matches to get to the quarterfinal but didn't wrestle on the second day. According to Cornell twitter, it was an injury so I guess he slept badly or something. He had a couple of wild day one matches; a 14-13 win and a wild match against the #13 guy, which ended with two seconds left in an injury default. I think Arujau was winning at the time.

The team ended up finishing in 6th place, just ahead of Lehigh. Up next is a dual meet against a stacked Missouri squad on January 10.

[dag14]

Nice summary of the SS results, thanks.

I watched just about every match by every Cornell wrestler over the course of the 2 days.  My observation:  we gave up too many points and/or lost too many matches in the closing seconds of the period.  This is disappointing:  whether you win or lose, you should wrestle hard for the entire 7 minutes you are on the mat.

[David Harding]

Nice summary of the SS results, thanks.

I watched just about every match by every Cornell wrestler over the course of the 2 days.  My observation:  we gave up too many points and/or lost too many matches in the closing seconds of the period.  This is disappointing:  whether you win or lose, you should wrestle hard for the entire 7 minutes you are on the mat.

Did the late second points look more like fatigue or losing concentration?