Wrestling 21-22

[ugarte]

The World Championships are in Oslo so ... blech. The opening matches start at 4:30 am eastern. Semis are at 10:30, which isn't bad.

Be that as it may, great day for Cornell and the United States. Kyle Dake '13 (74kg) won his three matches 11-0, 5-0 and 9-1 to make the finals, which start tomorrow at 2 pm. Also making the finals are Daton Fix (61kg) and David Taylor (84kg). Cornell assistant coach Nick Gwiazdowski is in repechage for Bronze. I don't know his first opponent, but if he wins he'll be facing Turkey's Taha Akgul, who just took Bronze in Tokyo, won Gold in Rio and is a 5x World medalist as well. Tough road.

In tomorrow's 4:30 am session, which I will not be watching, Yianni takes the mat in a tough but not impossible 65kg bracket. His first opponent is former Brown wrestler, Colin Realbuto, who is wrestling for Italy. If the name seems vaguely familiar, his brothers Brian and Dylan wrestled for Cornell. Thomas Gilman (57kg), Jordan Burroughs (79kg) and J'den Cox (92kg) also start tomorrow.

[cu155]

Dake's first match was a blood bath (for the other guy), second match seemed like he shifted styles and reverted to careful no scores allowed Dake, and third match he inexplicably allowed to go 6 minutes as it was 8-0 within the first 2 minutes of action.  One gets the sense he was either pacing himself or just trying different things while on cruise control.

[ugarte]

Yianni is out and will be coming home without a medal. After a quick tech over Colin Realbuto, he lost 5-1 to Armenia's Vazgen Tevanyan. This wasn't bad, necessarily, as Tevanyan was one of the favorites to make the final. Alas, Tevanyan lost in the QF so Yianni won't get pulled into repechage for bronze at 65kg.

In other weight classes, Gilman blew through the 57kg bracket and will wrestle for gold tomorrow afternoon. At 79kg, 5x gold medalist Jordan Burroughs is back in the gold medal match as well. At 92kg, J'Den Cox lost in the semifinals and will wrestle for bronze tomorrow.

Later today, Daton Fix (61kg), Kyle Dake '13 (74kg) and David Taylor (86kg) will wrestle for gold. Nick Gwiazdowski (125kg) won the first repechage match earlier today and will wrestle this afternoon for bronze.

In the team race, Iran had an incredible day today and have moved into first place. We sit in second with Russia in striking distance.

[ugarte]

Dake finished off his run for gold but Iran went on a tear and has taken the team lead. Of the Americans going for medals today, he was the only one who succeeded. Fix, Gwiz and (sort of but not totally surprisingly) Taylor all fell short.

[George64]

Highlights from World Wrestling Championships in Oslo, including Kyle Dake.

[Al DeFlorio]

Wrestling vs. Stanford (and Rob Koll) starting now on espn+.

[nshapiro]

Great performance by Cornell, including a freshman Ramirez upsetting Stanford's national champ at 165.  Possible injury to our heavyweight, and I thought some terrible work by the ref in general.  I am sure a better recap will be coming soon.

[ugarte]

OK! Here we go! Welcome back, officially, Cornell Wrestling!

We actually started unofficially last week with a massive squad heading to Binghamton "unattached" to get some matches in without it counting against whatever the limit is for competition. We got tournament wins from Chris Foca (174) and Jonathan Loew (184) and some other good results, including Cole Handlovic finishing in second at 141 and edging out Jonathan Saunders for the start today.

Yianni Diakomihalis and Vito Arujau skipped Binghamton and the likely eventual starters at 149 (Hunter Richard) and 197 (Ben Darmstadt) are both hurt to start the season. The only other stories are injuries: Dom LaJoie (133) got accidentally kneed in the head and dropped out of the tournament and Lewis Fernandes (Hwt) tweaked his knee at the end of a dominant tech fall win and decided to drop out as well. Fernandes came back to wrestle today; LaJoie did not but I don't know if that was an injury precaution or a strategic lineup choice.

And that takes us to today.

125: Yianni's little brother Greg Diakomihalis got the start at 125. I don't know if this will hold for the season, since I expect Vito to go 125 later in the year, but with LaJoie potentially injured at 133, Greg goes 125 and Vito goes up to 133. Greg D. was the more aggressive wrestler but he wasn't able to break through. The only scoring for most of the match was an escape for each wrestler. Stanford got a takedown as time wound down and that was all he needed. 3-1 loss and Stanford goes up 3-0.

133: Vito Arujau goes up to 133 for the day. No contest, Vito runs away with a 14-3 Major Decision and Cornell is up 4-3.

141: Cole Handlovic gets the start against Stanford's returning starter Jason Miranda. It's a competitive but low-scoring match with a lot of scrambling and Handlovic comes out on top for a 4-0 win. Cornell 7-3.

149: Yianni D. is back! Wrestling up at 149 against a top 10 wrestler in Jaden Abas, he got a stall point, an escape point and a penalty point (Abas grabbed his shoelace). Some uncharacteristic flexing after the match from Yianni after a 3-1 win. Cornell 10-3.

157: Colton Yapoujian faced Frosh Charlie Darracott. Late in the match, tied at 2 and with Darracott building enough riding time to win if he held on for the period, Yapoujian got a reversal with 20 seconds left to take a 4-2 lead and held on to the end (barely) without giving up an escape point for a 4-3 win. Cornell 13-3.

165: Promising frosh Julian Ramirez had the stiffest competition of the evening: returning NCAA champion and current #1 Shane Griffith. Griffith took the first shot, but Ramirez not only countered, he came out on top to take a 2-0 lead before giving up an escape. Ramirez took bottom and got out to stretch his lead to 3-1. Quick escape for Griffith to make it 3-2. Scramble with 30 seconds or so left in the period. A plausible takedown for Griffith but the refs don't give it to him, and in the splits for almost 20 seconds, Ramirez holds on for the win! Former Cornell coach Rob Koll challenged the call but after video review the refs didn't change it. Incredible 3-2 win. Cornell 16-3.

174: Chris Foca is already ranked in the top 10 as a freshman off of his dominant run at Binghamton (and a very good greyshirt year in 2019-20). He dominated early but had a rough third period where he couldn't get off of bottom. Didn't need to, though, and won 6-4. Cornell 19-3.

184: Jonathan Loew also had a dominant Binghamton tournament. He didn't let up today, with a first-period takedown that he turned into a pin in 1:38. Cornell 25-3.

197: With Darmstadt out, Jacob Cardenas takes over at 197. He was a huge recruit and has really good results so far - his only loss in Binghamton was to a 2x All-American - and had a very good greyshirt year as well. He came out attacking and never let up. With under 10 seconds left he let his opponent up and took him back down immediately; with the riding point awarded at the end he gets an 18-3 tech fall. Cornell 30-3.

Hwt: Lewis Fernandes was cruising in Binghamton but apparently tweaked his knee at the end of a dominant tech fall win and opted out of the rest of the tournament. Today, he got in an early scramble with an unheralded Heavy from Stanford and appeared to have tweaked the knee again. He walked off but didn't continue, losing by injury default. Not great! Our other quality heavyweight, Brandon Furman, is recovering from surgery and won't be back for a while. Have to hope this isn't serious. With the injury default, Stanford gets a 6 point win, making the final Cornell 30, Stanford 9.

Great start to the season... unless Fernandes is seriously hurt.

Here's the official Cornell writeup. :-D

[ugarte]

Cornell is going to Las Vegas for the annual Cliff Keen Invitational. You get one entry per weight, as opposed to a tournament like the Bearcat Open in Binghamton,* and because of injuries and rest we've got a kinda strange lineup.

125: Greg Diakomihalis. Is he holding the position while Vito Arujau gets down to 125? Time will tell but that's my guess.
133: Dom LaJoie comes back after getting an accidental knee to the head in Binghamton.
141: Cole Handlovic may similarly be holding the spot at 141 until Yianni comes down and Hunter Richard comes back from injury at 149.
149: Yianni. Will probably go back to 141 after Richard heals up. He's at #1 and #2 Sammy Sasso will be in Vegas too. Fun.
157: Adam Santoro. Moderate surprise as #23 Colton Yapoujian is the likely long-term starter here. If Yap's hurt, Cornell hasn't said.
165: Julian Ramirez in his first match since beating the defending national champ and popping into the top 20 at #17.
174: Chris Foca gets his first real competition after breaking into the top 10 as a freshman at #8.
184: Jonathan Loew, who has also come out on fire and up to #16, will face his first substantial test.
197: Jacob Cardenas, maybe filling in for Ben Darmstadt? Wally Pipping him? He jumps into the top 20 at #18 as Darmstadt hasn't wrestled yet.
285: With the injury to Fernandes - allegedly not serious - Drew Flynn gets unexpected mat time as the only healthy heavyweight on the roster. He is likely to go 0-2 but I'm rooting for him anyway.

* didn't write about it. not gonna, really, except to say that fernandes showed the first sign of an injury there, dropping out after winning in the QF by tech fall but limping off the mat. foca and loew looked great. cardenas looked great and his only loss was by one point to an all-american. yianni and vito skipped it.

[mountainred]

Really looking forward to seeing how the team shakes out in Vegas.  The prevailing wisdom seems to be Vito eventually goes to 125, but Greg D's upside seems to me so much greater than Dom's, and Vito will compete for a title at either weight (IMHO he's the only one who has a shot at Lee at 125).  Of course, if Vito says he wants to wrestle at 125, let him.  He's earned that choice.

And 197 is going to be interesting.  Ben has always been a favorite of mine to watch, but Jacob has looked amazing so far.

[ugarte]

Other than Yianni, a slow start. Yianni blew through his opponents with a pair of effortless tech falls.

Ramirez, Loew and Cardenas are also in the QF but had closer matches than expected.

LaJoie, Santoro and Foca are still around. Foca had a very disappointing second-round loss. Let a lesser opponent dictate the pace.

Greg D., Handlovic and Flynn are out. Handlovic lost to a multi-AA in Sudden Victory and damn near won it.

[ugarte]

On the final day, a full report:

125: Greg D. 0-2. His first match was apparently very exciting and he nearly pulled off a big upset. I'll watch it soon. His second match was close but no cigar. Some excitement when he almost advanced on a scoring error.

133: Dom LaJoie 2-2. A pair of pins over unranked wrestlers and losses to wrestlers who will probably be at NCAAs.

141: Cole Handlovic 0-2. Nearly beat a 2x AA in the first round, falling in SV, and then loses to a much less-heralded wrestler in the second round because he couldn't escape off of bottom.

149: Yianni Diakomihalis 5-0, 1st place. After a pair of easy tech falls, Yianni entered the "worth watching" part of the tournament. He won easily over #26 but without fireworks; won in SV over an under-ranked #12 (scary finish that he won with a classic Yianni scramble when it looked like he was dead to rights; Yianni also didn't get a call he deserved at the end of regulation which would have prevented OT); in the final match of the night he dominated 2020 NCAA finalist Sammy Sasso and rolled to a 7-2 win.

157: Adam Santoro 2-2. Easy wins over the unranked wrestlers, losses to the ranked ones. Unclear why Yapoujian wasn't wrestling.

165: Julian Ramirez 4-2, 4th place. Only losses were to #9 (and rising). A win over #10. Good weekend.

174: Chris Foca, 7-1, 3rd place A loss to a defensive wrestler in the second round followed by a run through the consolation bracket with wins over three ranked wrestlers and a win by medical forfeit over the guy who beat him. Solid performance, even if the loss was hard to watch.

184: Jonathan Loew, 4-1, 3rd place Three wins over top 20 wrestlers. The one loss was real bad but the overall performance was great.

197: Jacob Cardenas, 1-2. Both losses were to ranked wrestlers. Not great but not embarrassing.

285: Drew Flynn, 0-2. Fernandes coming back is critical to the team performance next semester.

Team finished in 7th, which is right around where chalk put them.

[ugarte]

Good little tournament in Florida. We went into the week as the #11 dual meet team* were in a three-team pool with #2 Penn State and #22 Northern Iowa. We beat Northern Iowa 27-9 then lost 21-16 to Penn State. Finishing in second got us a matchup with #8 Virginia Tech, who we beat 18-15. Really solid work from everyone and we came really close to some incredible upsets, including nearly pulling off the win against Penn State. We used the same lineup in all three duals, so I'll just go by weight.

125: Vito Arujau had an incredible tournament. He came into the weekend ranked #5 at 133, but everyone expected him to eventually come down to 125. This was his first action at the weight. He beat #10 Teske (UNI) 18-7, pinned Campbell (PSU) in under a minute, then beat #7 Latona (VT) 10-2. A pair of major decisions over top 10 opponents will be a good introduction to the 125 rankings next week. Can't imagine lower than #4.

133: Dom Lajoie had a really tall order this weekend: #31, #1, #4. He handled himself very well. First, he beat #31 Biscoglia (UNI) 5-2. Then, against #1 Bravo-Young (PSU) he was able to keep the match to 21-9, so he lost by only a major decision. Finally, against #4 Meyers (VT), he wrestled an incredible third period, essentially a net 0, to keep the score 9-3 and lost a regular decision. Lajoie isn't likely to be an All-American but if he can keep wrestling like this, he'll make the tournament and maybe score some points for the team.

141: Cole Handlovic also had to face a couple of ranked wrestlers and a freshman who stole the starting spot from a ranked wrestler and will be in the rankings this week for sure and went 0-3. He lost a major decision to #26 Happel (UNI), another to #1 Lee (PSU) (impressive that this wasn't a tech) and a regular decision to Gerardi (VT). Not the best weight for us.

149: #1 Yianni doing Yianni things. Two major decisions and a tech. Not the stiffest competition but he did major #22 Bartlett (PSU). There was a big anticipated matchup with #6 Andonian (VT) but he didn't weigh in and Yianni destroyed his backup.

157: #25 Colton Yapoujian beat a pair of unranked wrestlers on Monday. On Tuesday, facing #22 Brady (VT), he lost 2-1 in a match where neither wrestler could find a way to score from neutral.

165: #9 Julian Ramirez picked up a pair of wins against ranked wrestlers and three total wins on the weekend. Unspectacular but consistent and his defense was great.

174: #12 Chris Foca had a very tall order. After beating an unranked UNI opponent, he had defending champ, #1 Starocci from Penn State. He did a hell of a job keeping it close, and even scored the only takedown of the match, but he wasn't able to get out from bottom in the third period, so he still lost 3-2, giving up two escapes and a point for riding time. On Tuesday he had to face #4 Lewis (VT) - another former NCAA champion. He lost this one in a heartbreaking and silly way. Tied at 1-1 after an extra sudden victory period, the match went to rideouts - a pair of 30 second periods where each wrestler gets to choose starting position once. Foca won the coin flip and, intending to defer choice, accidentally chose top, which nobody really does because it's more valuable to get an escape point than (best case) 30 seconds of riding time. So Lewis escaped on Foca's choice, then chose bottom and escaped again, to win 3-1. Brain fart. Looked great on defense, though, and those two close losses may help his ranking more than hurt it.

184: #15 Jonathan Loew had to face *three* top-ten opponents. He lost 6-2 to #4 Keckeisen (UNI), then a 13-3 MD to defending champ #1 Brooks (PSU) before facing #9 Bolen (VT). Against Bolen, he scored a takedown with 4 seconds on the clock to send the match to SV, then scored again early in SV for an incredible 7-5 win. Signature win of his career so far.

197: #19 Jacob Cardenas won his first match by fall before facing former Cornellian #3 Max Dean (PSU). Cardenas got the first takedown of the match and looked like he might get another for the win in the third period, but Dean was able to scramble and end up on top for the 4-2 win. Cardenas finished his tournament with another W that was instrumental in winning the VT dual.

285: #18 Lewis Fernandes had a tough slate too. After winning his opening match, he had to face #4 Kerkvliet (PSU) and he couldn't get through Kerk's defense, falling 5-0. In the final match of the tournament for Cornell, Fernandes faced #14 Traxler (VT). Traxler scored twice in the first period. In the third period, Fernandes went all-out for a comeback but just barely missed a couple of takedowns and couldn't make the climb.

Overall a great weekend for the squad. I don't think any of the ranked wrestlers lost a single match to a lower-ranked wrestler and we got a couple of upsets and a few more near-upsets. Very nice performance especially in light of how young the team is.
 

* As distinguished from tournament team rankings, where we're #9. Dual meets reward top-to-bottom consistency, whereas tournaments disproportionately reward individual high placement, so the expectation that Yianni and Vito will place very high along with a bunch of other guys who can credibly make a run at the podium, moves us up a little.

[dag14]

Thanks for this succinct and thoughtful summary.  I watched the matches but had the sound muted most of the time so did not have all of the relevant context [which opponents were highly ranked, etc.]  I particularly liked the energy I saw from the Cornell wrestlers.  Every one of them looked invested, even in those matches when they were losing by a lot.  Kudos to the coaching staff for setting a high standard.

[ugarte]

Thanks for this succinct and thoughtful summary.  I watched the matches but had the sound muted most of the time so did not have all of the relevant context [which opponents were highly ranked, etc.]  I particularly liked the energy I saw from the Cornell wrestlers.  Every one of them looked invested, even in those matches when they were losing by a lot.  Kudos to the coaching staff for setting a high standard.

seriously! they fought extra hard at the bonus point margins and it paid off.

biggest problem the team had was on bottom, but really only against the top guys who are going to be beasts to begin with.