Wrestling 2018-19

[George64]

Future Cornellian, Greg Diakomihalis, wins NY state wrestling title. Rochester D and C

and later tore knee ligament like his older brother.  Rochester D and C

[George64]

Future Cornellian, Greg Diakomihalis, wins NY state wrestling title. Rochester D and C

and later tore knee ligament like his older brother.  Rochester D and C

More on Greg D in Rochester D and C.

[ugarte]

The US Open, the primary World Team Trials qualifier, starts today, and Cornell has a number of entrants. Mostly in Senior Men's Freestyle, but also a couple in Senior Greco. All weights in kg. This is what I've been able to put together from my checking registrations and the work of some others on the wrestlingreport.com Cornell subforum. Seed in parens if available.

Junior Greco:
60: (5) Phillip Moomey '23
77: (U) Sammy Cokeley '23 (or '24)
82: (4) Jonathan Loew '23
87: (2) Jonathon Fagen '23 (or '24)

Senior Greco:
82: (9) Andrew Berreyesa '22 (already qualified for WTT - Defending US Junior WT member; he took silver at Worlds)
82: (3) Jon Jay Chavez '19 (already qualified at 72 - Defending US Senior WT member - but I can't see him ever getting back to that weight. He was injured before Worlds and didn't compete.)

Junior Freestyle:
61: Phillip Moomey '23
66: Josh Saunders '24 (or '25)
74: Andrew Merola '23
74: Sammy Cokeley '23
74: Julian Ramirez '23 (or '24)
86: Jonathan Loew '23
92: Jacob Cardenas '23 (or '24)
125: Brendan Furman '22
125: Lewis Fernandes '23 (or '24)

Senior Freestyle:
57: (5) Frank Perelli '12
57: (7) Vito Arujau '22 (already qualified at 61 for WTT being the US Junior WT member; he was injured before Worlds and didn't compete.)
65: (5) Yianni Diakomihalis '21 (already qualified for WTT - NCAA champion)
86: ( Max Dean '21
97: (3) Ben Honis '19

61: Nahson Garrett '16 is qualified for the WTT as defending WT member but is not competing at the US Open. He was injured after Final X last year; his replacement was a world medalist.
79: Kyle Dake '13 skips past WTT all the way to Final X as defending World Champion. Final X is a faceoff between a defending world medalist and the winner of the WTT for a spot on the team.

The full qualification process is explained in a handy chart here. The short version is that the US Open champ gets a bye to the WTT finals; the winner of WTT faces any defending world medalists who skip straight to Final X.

[ugarte]

Greco starts today. TS is "technical superiority" or 8 point mercy rule

Code Select Expand


[u]Junior GR[/u]
             R16       QF       SF
60: Moomey   WTS 11-0  L 8-10
77: Cokeley  WTS 13-3  LTS 4-12
82: Loew     WBF 1:18  WBF 1:20 LTS 0-10
87: Fagen    BYE       WTS 8-0  LTS 0-8

             Con 8.2   Con 4     CSF       3d Place
60: Moomey   WTS 8-0   WTS 10-0  W 6-6     LTS 4-13  4th Place
77: Cokeley  L FF                                    DNP
82: Loew                         WTS 11-3  W 2-0     3rd Place
87: Fagen                        W 8-6     W 4-4     3rd Place
[u]Senior GR[/u]
             R16       QF       Con 8.2            
82 Berreyesa W 5-4     LTS 0-8  L 1-3                DNP
82 Chavez    WTS 8-0   LTS 0-9  LTS 0-8              DNP


[ugarte]

Freestyle starts today. Brackets are up for Senior; not yet for Junior. Technical superiority is 10 points in freestyle. https://arena.flowrestling.org/event/f6df0763-537e-cdc3-0c65-d292d527eef6

[code]
Junior Freestyle:
                       R64       R32        R16       QF         SF
61:  (7) Moomey        BYE       WBF        LTS 0-10
65:  (2) Saunders      BYE       W 7-5      W 5-4     WTS 14-3   L 0-6
74:  (U) Merola        W 11-2    W 15-8     L 7-9
74:  (U) Cokeley       WTS 10-0  LTS 0-11  
74:  (4) Ramirez       WTS 12-2  WTS 10-0   W 8-2     L 2-3      
86:  (U) Loew          BYE       WTS 15-4   L 6-12
92:  (4) Cardenas       -        WTS 18-5   WTS 16-5  LTS 6-16
125: (U) Furman        BYE       L6-3    
125: (U) Fernandes     WFF       WINJ       LTS 4-14

Consolation:
                 C16.1       C16.2     C8.1    C8.2      C4.1      CSemi     3/5/7
61:  Moomey                  L 0-8    
65:  Saunders                                                      WTS 11-0  L 0-6     4th Place        
74:  Merola                  L 7-15
74:  Cokeley     L 10-21
74:  Ramirez                                   WBF       WTS 10-0  WBF       LBF       4th Place
86:  Loew                    WBF       L 0-4
92:  Cardenas                                  WTS 10-0  W 10-2    L 2-8     LTS 4-14  6th Place
125: Fernandes               WTS 11-0  LBF    
125: Furman      WTS 11-0    WTS 13-3  WBF     L 4-12

Senior Freestyle:
                         R64      R32       R16       QF        SF        F
57: (5) Perrelli         BYE      W 6-1     W 8-2     LTS 0-11  
57: (7) Arujau           BYE      WTS 11-0  W 14-10   LTS 8-18
65: (5) Diakomihalis     W 7-4    WTS 14-4  WTS 10-0  W 10-3    WTS 16-5  W 6-4 US Open Champion! Skips straight to Final X!
86: ( Dean             BYE      WTS 12-1  W 4-1     LTS 0-10
97: (3) Honis                     BYE       WTS 10-0  W 8-5     W 11-3    L 0-5 2nd Place (qualified for World Team Trials)

                         C8.2      C4.1      CSemi  3/5/7
57: Perrelli             WTS 12-2  LTS 2-12         W 2-1 7th Place (qualified for World Team Trials)
57: Arujau               W 3-2     WTS 11-1  WFF    L 2-8 4th Place (qualified for World Team Trials)
86: Dean                 WTS 12-2  LFF              LFF   8th Place

[ugarte]

Beat the Streets Grapple at the Garden is a very cool wrestling exhibition - basically a series of friendlies - and recently crowned US Open champ Yianni went up against Bajrang Punia, the #1 wrestler in the world in his weight class. And won.

Enjoy the video in it's brief life before this gets taken down and put back behind a paywall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efBOd0tPhQ

[scoop85]

Beat the Streets Grapple at the Garden is a very cool wrestling exhibition - basically a series of friendlies - and recently crowned US Open champ Yianni went up against Bajrang Punia, the #1 wrestler in the world in his weight class. And won.

Enjoy the video in it's brief life before this gets taken down and put back behind a paywall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efBOd0tPhQ

Thanks for alerting us about the video. Very impressive performance.  But what was with Punia's coach snapping the towel at his guy's face between periods? That was odd.

[ugarte]

Beat the Streets Grapple at the Garden is a very cool wrestling exhibition - basically a series of friendlies - and recently crowned US Open champ Yianni went up against Bajrang Punia, the #1 wrestler in the world in his weight class. And won.

Enjoy the video in it's brief life before this gets taken down and put back behind a paywall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efBOd0tPhQ

Thanks for alerting us about the video. Very impressive performance.  But what was with Punia's coach snapping the towel at his guy's face between periods? That was odd.

aggressive fanning, that's all

[scoop85]

Beat the Streets Grapple at the Garden is a very cool wrestling exhibition - basically a series of friendlies - and recently crowned US Open champ Yianni went up against Bajrang Punia, the #1 wrestler in the world in his weight class. And won.

Enjoy the video in it's brief life before this gets taken down and put back behind a paywall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0efBOd0tPhQ

Thanks for alerting us about the video. Very impressive performance.  But what was with Punia's coach snapping the towel at his guy's face between periods? That was odd.

aggressive fanning, that's all

Aggressive is right. Seems to me like he came close to taking out his guy's eye ::dribble::

[ugarte]

Vito Arujau blew through the field at 57kg at the US Junior World Team Trials to make the National team. This is the second year in a row Arujau won a national team qualifying tournament. In 2018 he won the U23 Trials at 61kg but withdrew before the world championship. I don't know if he is going to try to qualify for U23 again as well.

Chris Foca (82kg) and Joshua Saunders (65kg) - two recruits who will join the team in the Fall - lost early in the Junior WTT.

Ben Honis (97kg) lost in the first round of Senior freestlye WTT.

Frank Perrelli (57kg) lost in the second round of Senior freestyle WTT.

Anthony Berreyesa (82kg) lost in the second round of Senior Greco WTT.

Yianni Diakomihalis (61kg) and Kyle Dake (79kg) both got to skip the WTT and are already qualified for Final X, the last stage of US Senior World Team qualification.

[ugarte]

Qualification for the Worlds for the U23 and Cadet (U17) are this weekend and Cornell has a lot of entrants. As far as I know, though, all are in U23.

First, in Greco, Andrew Berreyesa will represent Team USA for the second straight year. After qualifying last year for the Junior World team and taking Silver at 82kg, he qualified for the U23 team at 82kg this year, winning the tournament as the 4 seed. He beat the 1 seed in the semifinals and then a 2x NCAA freestyle All-American in the finals. Wild that he wrestles for Cornell at 165.

We had two more wrestlers compete in Greco - Joshua Saunders and Luis Hernandez both wrestled at 63kg. Saunders finished in 4th, Hernandez in 7th.

In the Freestyle competition, since I'm tracking this at a Cornell wrestling forum, here's what I've got:

Championship bracket:
61: Chas Tucker - Bye; WTS 11-0; W 7-0; W 8-4 (In QF)
65: Joshua Saunders - Bye; WTS 12-2; WTS 10-0; WTS 16-5 (In QF) (yes, he competed in Greco on Friday then in Freestyle over the weekend)
86: Max Dean - Bye; W 8-0; WTS 13-2; W 8-5 (In QF)
97: Ben Honis - Bye; WTS 10-0 (In QF) (not many entrants at 97)

Consolation bracket:
74: Adam Santoro - WTS 10-0, WTS 10-0, WTS 10-0, LTS 0-10 Consi: WTS 4-4 (In C8)
86: Jonathan Loew - Bye, WTS 13-3, WTS 12-0, LTS 4-15 Consi: WTS 10-0 (In C8)

Eliminated:
65: Mike Venosa - W 10-2; LTS 0-11 Consi: W 4-2; L 14-14
65: Mike Russo - Bye; L 10-16 Consi: WTS 16-6; WTS 10-0; L 9-10
65: Ryan Moore -  WTS 12-2; W 10-4; LTS 0-10 Consi: WTS 13-2; L 9-20
70: Mike Russo - Bye; LTS 0-10 Consi: WTS 10-0; LTS 0-11
70: Anthony Palmiotto - LTS 0-11 Consi: 0-10
74: Micah Hoffman - LTS 2-12 Consi: LTS 1-11
125: Brendan Furman WTS 10-0; WTS 12-1; LBF Consi: L 12-19

[ugarte]

More U23 National results

Championship Bracket
61: Tucker - W 6-3; W 8-4 (to Finals)
65: Saunders WInj; LTS 0-12 (to Consi Semi)
86: Dean - WTS 13-3; W 10-9
97: Honis - WTS 10-0; LTS 3-14 (to Consi Semi)

Consolation Bracket
65: Saunders - WTS 10-0 (to 3d place match)
74: Santoro - W 12-3; LBF (Out)
84: Loew - WTS 11-0; W 7-2; LTS 1-12 (to 7th place match)
97: Honis - Injury Default (to 5th place match)

Medal Round
65: Saunders - WTS 10-0 3rd Place
84: Loew - L 6-8 8th Place
97: Honis - Injury Default 6th Place

BEST OF 3 FINALS
65: Tucker - W 4-0; WTS 10-0 TUCKER IS THE U23 NATIONAL CHAMP!
86: Dean -  WTS 10-0; WTS 14-2 DEAN IS THE U23 NAtiONAL CHAMP!

Dean is almost certainly going to go to the world championships in Budapest in October, because there is nobody qualified for Final X at the senior level who is still eligible for U23 at his weight class, so there's not likely to be a post-Final X challenge for his spot on the team. Tucker, on the other hand, said that he isn't going to go because his computer science courseload is too challenging to do both! Tucker's backup, Pitt's Micki Phillippi, has to hope that Oklahoma State's Daton Fix wins Final X or doesn't want to challenge him for the spot if he loses. By the same token, if Yianni loses at Final X, he can challenge Missouri's Jayden Eierman for the U23 spot.

I also found out that a Cornell recruit, Ethan Hatcher, wrestled in the Cadet championship (high school, basically) at 110kg. He finished in third place, with all four of his wins coming by Technical Superiority and his only loss to the champion.

[ugarte]

At Final X, Yianni Diakomihalis faced 3x National Champion Zain Retherford from Penn State in Best of 3 rematch of the US Open final. In the first match, Retherford did a great job of preventing Yianni from scoring on the counterattack or in scrambles and won 10-4. The second match, well...

Match 2 was a wild match - Retherford shot off of the opening whistle and when the smoke cleared, he was ahead 4-4 on tiebreaker criteria. Yianni too the lead back at 6-4. Then it got nuts. There was a scramble with just under a minute left that was admittedly really difficult to score. The ref on the mat gave each wrestler 2 and there was no more scoring the rest of the match even though there were multiple ALMOSTS, and the match ended with Yianni up 8-6. Retherford's corner challenged the scoring and the matside judges ultimately ruled that only Retherford should have received 2 and awarded him the match 6-6 (last to score). This is, to say the least controversial.

First, under any normal system, if they are going to take away points, they should return the match to that point. Yianni would have wrestled a different - more urgent - match had he known he were losing. Additionally, the wrestling rules say that you have to challenge within 5 seconds of points being awarded and Retherford's corner didn't challenge until the conclusion of the match - nearly a minute after the scoring decision. The rationale given was that there was a minute of uninterrupted wrestling after the scoring decision, so it is one unitary "move," so they were allowed to go all the way back. Yianni and his people have said that they are going to file a protest through the UsOC process, which - according to the head of USA Wrestling - is the only avenue of appeal.

Stay tuned.

[ugarte]

Yianni's appeal of the second match at Final X is still pending but he's wrestling this weekend in Istanbul at the Yasar Dogu tournament - and so is Zain Retherford. The brackets are not out yet but we could see a rematch before we see the results of Yianni's protest.

Kyle Dake postponed his match in Final X because of an injury he sustained at the Friedman Center when Cornell heavyweights Brendan Furman and Jeramy Sweany were scrapping to close to where Dake and Dean were working out and crashed into the back of Dake's leg, requiring knee surgery. His rescheduled date against Alex Dieringer is August 17. As a warmup he won the Grand Prix of Spain but tbh didn't look close to his best against B level competition.

[ugarte]

Yianni's appeal of the second match at Final X is still pending but he's wrestling this weekend in Istanbul at the Yasar Dogu tournament - and so is Zain Retherford. The brackets are not out yet but we could see a rematch before we see the results of Yianni's protest.

Yianni and Zain will wrestle in the first round. On Flo with a subscription at 4am Eastern.