Wrestling 2022-23

[ugarte]

Cornell went to Las Vegas to compete in the annual Cliff Keen tournament. No Yianni at 149, no Yapoujian at 157 and no Cardenas at 197 so not a full lineup.

Some very good results, including titles for Vito Arujau (133) and Julian Ramirez (165), neither of whom really broke a sweat.

Chris Foca (174) finished in third, with his only loss by one point to a former NCAA champ Mekhi Lewis and wins over three ranked wrestlers.

Brett Ungar (125) finished in seventh. He split a pair of matches with a top 10 wrestler, took another to OT and got himself into the rankings picture.

Vince Cornella (141) had a somewhat disappointing tournament, going 1-2, but tbh all three of his matches were to wrestlers around his own ranking and anything from 0-2 to 3-0 in those matches would be a reasonable outcome.

Lewis Fernandes (285) is a very unique wrestler in that he's on the small side for a heavyweight but despite that is a powerful wrestler on top, wrenching larger guys over. The problem is that he is also kind of a risk taker and that is often an issue. An uncommonly high percentage of his matches end by fall, whether he is winning them or losing them. And so it went in Vegas. He won his first match with a first period pin. In his second match, he had been on top for a minute and a half when he got in a risky position and instead of bailing and giving up one point, he got reversed to his back and lost. In the consolation round, he cruised to a victory (no pin but 3 separate sets of back points) before dropping out of the tournament with a medical forfeit, though the match report from the coach didn't even mention any injury so you can probably put scare quotes around "medical."

Sam Jones (149), Gage McClenahan (157) and Ethan Hatcher (197) filled in for starters and McClenahan and Hatcher even came away with wins, so that's not terrible.

The real bad news from the weekend is that Jonathan Loew (184) was leading in his match 7-4 then got taken down very hard out of bounds and defaulted out of the tournament with a shoulder injury. The match report said that it wasn't as bad as it looked but he's going to take a couple of weeks of R&R, which probably means he'll be back for the next competition, which is in two weeks in New Orleans against Oregon State and Iowa State (and a third team TBD).

As it stands now, all of Cornell's starters but Yapoujian are ranked by Intermat, which means this is a good, deep team. Yapoujian will be ranked as soon as he gets a few more matches under his belt. Half are ranked high enough to finish the season as All-Americans (Arujau (3), Yianni (1), Ramirez (7), Foca (6) and Loew (6)). Good start.

[ugarte]

Didn't mention it here but Cornell's had four dual meets since Las Vegas. The team went 2-1 in New Orleans, with wins over Oregon State and North Carolina and a close loss to #6 Iowa State. This week, Cornell went to Flo's HQ in Austin for a neutral site dual against #3 Arizona State and (though both teams were missing starters) won. We have another big dual starting at 7pm tonight (on ESPN+) against #8 Virginia Tech.

Here's the recap by weight.

125: Brian Ungar has worked his way into the rankings (Flo 17/Intermat 21) and continues to solidify his place as the starter. His trip to New Orleans was strange, as he beat #10 Kaylor of Oregon State then followed it up by losing to Iowa State's unheralded backup. He followed it up with a win against North Carolina and a game loss to ASU's former national finalist, #6 Courtney.

133: #3 Vito Arujau remains undefeated, including a pair of wins over #4 McGee. The rematch in Austin was a little close for comfort, as it took a last second takedown (literally) to avoid overtime.

141: Vince Cornella has a similar climb to Ungar (16/22). He had a wobble against North Carolina against another talented freshman but rebounded with a quality win against Arizona State. No bad losses and some top-20 wins.

149: After an early season loss to Austin Gomez, #1 Yianni Diakomihalis hasn't lost again and has wins over the only wrestler to beat Gomez and a 2x All-American.

157: This has been a shaky weight. Expected starter Colton Yapoujian - plagued by injuries his first two years on the hill - had a pair of losses on the first day of the New Orleans duals and hasn't wrestled since. McClenahan has wrestled the last two for us and has lost both close. We'll see how this develops.

165: Julian Ramirez has solidified his spot in the top 10 (9/7) with a great season to date. His only loss since the last update was to a 2x AA / former national champ.

174: #5 Chris Foca continues to impress. His only loss on the year was by one point to a former national champion. He's also been racking up bonus points along the way with dominant victories.

184: Starter (and returning AA) Jonathan Loew hasn't come back since injuring his shoulder in Las Vegas. He's still in the top 10 (9/6). His return was originally expected in New Orleans but now? Who knows. The first fill-in, Canoyer, went 0-3 and Ethan Hatcher has since dropped down from 197. Hatcher dropped his first match at the weight on Wednesday against Arizona State, but aside from giving up a 6 point move early in the match, fought back hard and clearly had more in the tank at the end than his top 20 opponent.

197: Jacob Cardenas is in the top 20 (18/17) and is quite underrated by the rankers imo. He hasn't wrestled much, though, and is only 3-2, so I guess I understand. His losses are to a fellow top 20 guy in Wisconsin's Amos and Iowa State's top 5 at 184, who bumped up for the dual.

285: Lewis Fernandes is also sticking around the top 20 (16/18), though he's had an odd season. He's 4-4, but his wins are unimpressive while his losses are all to top 10-ish wrestlers. He has no matches against anyone in between. Brendan Furman, a senior who was Cornell's starter before the pandemic (and Fernandes' arrival), is back and 2-0 but I think pretty clearly the backup regardless.

As I'm typing this, the guys are stretching for their match against Virginia Tech. Word is that two of VT's best guys (at 157 and 174) are out, which obviously improves our chances considerably. Here's how it looks on paper, based on Intermat, and updating the scoring as the match goes on:
 

Code Select Expand


     CU VT
157: UR UR McClenahan drops a close one. 4-2. [b]VT 3-0.[/b]
165:  7 22 Ramirez with a workmanlike 3-0 win. Never threatened. [b]Tied 3-3[/b]
174:  5 UR Foca dominates. Up 15-0, he'd have won by tech fall but he made a slight adjustment to the hold and got the pin. [b]CU 9-3[/b]
184: UR  7 Hatcher was game but Bolen was too much. Keeping it to a 4-0 loss is a quality appearance. [b]CU 9-6[/b]
197: 17 23 Cardenas almost got the major but had to settle for a 10-3 W. [b]CU 12-6[/b]
285: UR 23 Surprise (to me) start for Furman. Couldn't generate any offense and gave up a pair of takedowns in a 6-1 loss. [b]CU 12-9[/b]
125: 21 18 After trading escapes, Ungar spent SV playing for rideouts. He escaped but his opponent didn't 2-1 OT win. [b]CU 15-9[/b]
133:  3  8 Vito no longer undefeated. Never really shot and kept giving up his legs. Usually fought it off but gave up one takedown to lose 3-2. [b]CU 15-12[/b]
141: 22 14 Incredible performance from Cornella. Not just an upset, a 12-4 Major Decision. [b]CU 19-12[/b] and that's locks up the team W.
149:  1 11 Yianni with a comfortable 6-2 W. [b]CU 22-12[/b]


Other than the first loss for Vito, a heck of a night, especially on the road. LGR.

[ugarte]

These rankings will change this week, but heading into tonight, this is where our guys were ranked:

Code Select Expand


WIN Flo Intermat   WrestleStat (ELO)
125: Ungar 17 16 18         18
133: Arujau 3 3 3          3
141: Cornella 13 12 14         17
149: Yianni D. 1 1 1          1
157: Yapoujian NR NR NR         36
165: Ramirez 8 9 7          8
174: Foca 4 4 4          7
184: Loew 8 9 6         10
197: Cardenas NR 18 17         22
285: Fernandes 18 15 18         14
TEAM DUAL: 4 4 7          5
TEAM NCAA: 9 5 3          6


Our guys had a somewhat desultory 18-15 win over Lehigh tonight, with both teams having starters out.

141: Tough start. Cornella was passive all match and let his opponent stay close all the way and then beat him with a late takedown. L 4-2. Lehigh 3-0

149: Yianni was going to win this either way, but Lehigh sent out a backup because they wanted to use their usual starter at 149 to replace their injured 157. Lehigh's guy was game and even almost scored but Yianni rolled to a tech. WTF 16-1. Cornell 5-3

157: With both teams starters injured, Lehigh bumped up their 149 and Cornell sent out a backup, Cole Handlovic. In a bit of a shocker, Handlovic piled up riding time and engaged enough to avoid a stall call while mostly avoiding engagement. W 2-0. Cornell 8-3

165: Ramirez was much better than his opponent and proved it. Probably could have pushed for a tech but didn't. 13-2 MD. Cornell 12-3

174: Foca lost last year in a shocker and when he gave up a quick takedown today I thought history was about to repeat itself, but Foca righted the ship. W 9-5. Cornell 15-3

184: With Loew still out, Hatcher got the start again. He's not getting blown out but he isn't scoring either. L 4-0. Cornell 15-6

197: This weight has Lehigh's best wrestler, a returning All-American. Cardenas took an early lead but once Beard scored, Cardenas wasn't strong enough to do anything on bottom. He did keep it close enough. L 6-2. Cornell 15-9

285: Fernandes was out of the lineup again. Furman took the first shot but couldn't convert and then basically ran out of gas. L 9-3. Cornell 15-12

125: Boring match with nobody really trying to score. 1-1 heading to SV where Ungar took a clean shot and converted it. W 3-1 SV CU 18-12

133: Facing a ranked opponent, Ethan Fernandez needed to not get pinned for Cornell to cinch up the W and he didn't. Possibly a winnable match but not tonight. L 4-0.

Final: CU 18-15

I expect to see Cornella drop at least a few spots. I don't know if the rankers are going to keep being so generous with Loew and Fernandes until they start taking the mat regularly. Losing to Beard shouldn't hurt Cardenas.

Conference schedule starts next Saturday with Harvard. If all of our starters go, this should be a walk, with only 174 and Heavyweight competitive. If Yapoujian is still out, 157 becomes a toss-up too. Our backups at 133 and 184 are probably favored over the Harvard starters if Arujau and Loew are still out.

[Al DeFlorio]

Conference schedule starts next Saturday with Harvard. If all of our starters go, this should be a walk, with only 174 and Heavyweight competitive. If Yapoujian is still out, 157 becomes a toss-up too. Our backups at 133 and 184 are probably favored over the Harvard starters if Arujau and Loew are still out.

Conference schedule actually starts Saturday at noon at Brown, now coached by former Cornell NCAA champion Jordzn Leen.

[ugarte]

Conference schedule starts next Saturday with Harvard. If all of our starters go, this should be a walk, with only 174 and Heavyweight competitive. If Yapoujian is still out, 157 becomes a toss-up too. Our backups at 133 and 184 are probably favored over the Harvard starters if Arujau and Loew are still out.

Conference schedule actually starts Saturday at noon at Brown, now coached by former Cornell NCAA champion Jordzn Leen.

lol how did i miss that i was looking right at the schedule. even with our current injuries, we should shut out Brown unless we go deep into our bench to give some of the backups mat time.

[mountainred]

Desultory was a good word.  Rarely do you see little action at the lightweights, though you have to think Ethan was told "do not get pinned!"

I remember thinking Loew's injury was bad when it happened, but am really wondering about Fernandes.  If those two remain out, the Princeton dual gets really dicey.

[ugarte]

Two dual day for the wrestling team. First, Brown. Later, Harvard.

Brown:

125: Ungar takes care of business without a threat W 6-0. Cornell 3-0

133: Ethan Fernandez in for Arujau. Hope it's just because it's a two-dual day and Vito is ready for this evening. No scoring through 2, with Fernandez getting ridden out in the second. In the third, Fernandez gives up the escape but gets a TD with ~7 seconds left to send it to OT but... he gets hit for locked hands with ~3 seconds left. Totally unnecessary (accidental, probably) grip since his positioning was good. Neutral restart but with 2.2 seconds left, no way to score again. L 4-2. Tied 3-3.

141: Vince Cornella, never threatened, kept the pressure on. WMD 11-3. Cornell 7-3.

149: Unlike most, Cabanillas went right after Yianni and got on his legs twice. Unfortunately, all that did was let Yianni score. And score and score. In the third, Cabanillas was gassed and Yianni turned him twice for NF4. WTF 18-2. Cornell 12-3.

157: Yapoujian finally returns. Scoreless first, Yapoujian chooses neutral in the second; Brown gets a TD and over a minute of RT. Brown chooses top to preserve and stretch RT but bad choice: Yapoujian reverses and rides out to go to OT. Quick takedown for McMonagle. L 4-2 SV. Cornell 12-6.

165: Quick TD for Ramirez, Escape. Looked away for a second and ... Ramirez is caught and on his back and ALMOST pinned but only NF2, before he wriggles out and escapes. Another quick takedown for Ramirez to tie and then takes him over to WBF 1:51. Cornell 18-6.

174: Canoyer giving Foca a breather. Canoyer escape in the second, Clearie escape in the third. Canoyer with a slick low double right after the escape to go up 3-1 and runs out a lot of the clock on top. Gives up a late escape but stays out of trouble for his first Cornell W 3-2. Cornell 21-6.

184: Loew is back! Quick TD, turn for 2, readjust for a WBF 1:58. Effortless. Cornell 27-6.

197: Cardenas with an immediate TD, release, TD, NF4 NF4 NF4. WTF 16-1. Cornell 32-6.

285: Furman gets the start. Unclear if it's so Fernandes is fresh for Slavikouski or if Furman gets to go twice today. Slow start but Furman gets it going and is never threatened. W 6-0.

FINAL Cornell 35, Brown 6. See you in Cambridge.

EDIT: I deleted the clips because they were supposed to embed as links but instead made the post unreadable. You can see all of them on Twitter @BigRedWrestling.

[ugarte]

Harvard dual was another romp for Cornell but there were some surprises.

125: Brett Ungar is good on top but not so good on bottom and needs to score more on his feet. Today, he gave up an escape but couldn't get one of his own and that was the only scoring. L 1-0. Harvard 3-0.

133: Vito still out, which is worrisome. Ethan Fernandez is a capable backup, though. After a slow start, Fernandez ran away with it. W 8-1. Tied 3-3.

141: Cornella was never really threatened and also fell just short of a major. W 7-1. Cornell 6-3.

149: Yianni took too long trying for back points in the first and ended up running out of time before he could get a major. WMD 15-2. Cornell 10-3.

157: Colton Yapoujian is back but doesn't look back to form. Taken down in the first and packed up quick. LBF 1:13. Cornell 10-9.

165: Josh Ramirez was having a lot of trouble with the ref. A penalty point that I still don't understand in the first period, a lot of stalling that the ref didn't seem to mind... he seemed annoyed with Kim too. Still, W 5-2. Cornell 13-9.

174: To my surprise, Foca didn't wrestle in the late dual meet either. Evan Canoyer returned after his first win in red and got his second. Also just shy of bonus points. Every time his opponent got his feet close together, Canoyer fired at his ankles and got 'em. Harvard kid is going to hate that film. W 10-4. Cornell 16-9.

184: It took a little longer, but Jonathan Loew got his second fall of the day in his return. He gave up an early two but he reversed and had a decent lead when he finished off his opponent. WBF 5:56. Cornell 22-9.

197: Jacob Cardenas with another blowout. WTF 18-1. Cornell 27-9.

285: Brendan Furman got the start again (and the grapevine says that Fernandes is out for the year). Harvard's best wrestler is their heavyweight, and he was too much. L 8-2.

FINAL Cornell 27, Harvard 12.

Next weekend, @Columbia on Saturday and @Army on Sunday.

[scoop85]

Nice recap as always, but next weekend we have Army Saturday and Columbia Sunday

[ugarte]

Nice recap as always, but next weekend we have Army Saturday and Columbia Sunday

getting old...

[ugarte]

Rankings for the week of 1/23

Code Select Expand


WIN Flo Intermat   WrestleStat (ELO)
125: Ungar 19 14 17         22
133: Arujau 3 3 3          3
141: Cornella 11 10 16         25
149: Yianni D. 1 1 1          1
157: Yapoujian NR NR NR         61
165: Ramirez 7 9 8          7
174: Foca 4 4 4          7
184: Loew 8 8 6          8
197: Cardenas NR 17 16         22
285: Fernandes* 17 14 18         16
TEAM DUAL: 10 4 4          6
TEAM NCAA: 4 5 4          6


[CAS]

Wrestling at Columbia 1:00 today.  Ugarte, are you going?

[Al DeFlorio]

Wrestling at Columbia 1:00 today.  Ugarte, are you going?

30-3 Cornell, final

[ugarte]

Wrestling at Columbia 1:00 today.  Ugarte, are you going?

Yeah, I was there. Didn't check eLF before I left, though. I didn't make my way up to West Point for yesterday's dual against Army. The weekend was a runaway for the Big Red.

125: Ungar had a very low-scoring but ultimately successful weekend against a pair of wrestlers who will be on the margins of qualification for NCAAs. Against Army, Ungar got the only point of the match after 7:15 of wrestling with an escape in the first rideout period. Against Columbia, he got the only takedown of the match in the first period. He chose to start the second period at neutral so he wouldn't be on bottom, then his opponent chose top to start the third so Ungar would have to. Ungar never did escape, and he did give up a point for stalling, but only one despite Columbia fans screaming for another - to ultimately win 2-1.

133: Arujau's Army opponent was unranked and Vito dominated him with a 15-0 Tech. Columbia's (barely) ranked opponent put up a bit more of a fight, but Vito still won 12-3 for a major decision.

141: Cornella also won a pair of matches this weekend. Against his unranked Army opponent, he cruised to a 12-0 major decision. Against the bigger challenge from Columbia, he got two takedowns and gave up two escapes and was penalized for stalling twice (the last with 11 seconds left in the match), but because he had over a minute of riding time, he was awarded the tiebreaking point to win 5-4.

149: Yianni took off the Friday match against Army. In his stead, JJ Wilson lost 7-1. Against Columbia, Yianni rolled to a 17-5 major decision.

157: Handlovic was the starter again this weekend. Against Army, a dramatic last-second takedown pushed the match to SV, but in the extra period, Army scored to take the match 4-2. Against Columbia - and the tougher opponent on paper - he scored at the end of regulation to send the match to SV then scored again in the extra period for a dramatic 6-4 win.

165: Julian Ramirez wrestled against Army on Saturday and after a strange penalty point awarded to his opponent, he wrestled cautiously. He still won 4-2. His match against Columbia was one of the more anticipated of the dual, with Ramirez holding a 3-2* edge in the rivalry with Ogunsanya, but neither wrestled today. In a match of backups, and Benny Baker's first appearance in a dual for Cornell, Baker gave up the first takedown but didn't give up another point in a 5-2 W.

174: Foca had a tough matchup against Army, and I think he gave up the first takedown, but he handled it well and came back for a 6-3 win. Today, his Columbia opponent got to his legs a couple of times but Foca was the only one who scored in the exchanges and won by major, 14-3.

184: On Saturday, Loew defaulted out with a recurrence of his shoulder injury. It remains to be seen how serious it is, but he weighed in against Columbia even though he ultimately didn't wrestle. Hatcher took the mat against Columbia and scored a takedown at the whistle to keep from being shut out but fell 4-2 for Cornell's only L of the dual.

197: Cardenas got the only takedown of the match against Army and won 3-1. Against Columbia he was able to get some back points and won comfortably, 8-2.

285: With an apparent injury to Fernandes, Furman is now the starter for good. Against Army, he bullrushed his opponent to take him down and basically fold him up. He got the pin 25 seconds into the second period. His Columbia opponent made it to the end of the match but didn't score either, with Furman winning 5-0.

Penn and Princeton next weekend up in Ithaca.

Cornell 27, Army 12
125: #17 Brett Ungar (Cornell) won by decision over #33 Ethan Berginc (Army West Point), 1-0 (OT2)
133: #3 Vito Arujau (Cornell) won by technical fall over Richard Treanor (Army West Point), 15-0
141: #16 Vince Cornella (Cornell) won by major decision over Eddie Hummel (Army West Point), 12-0
149: Trae McDaniel (Army West Point) won by decision over JJ Wilson (Cornell), 7-1
157: Nathan Lukez (Army West Point) won by decision over Cole Handlovic (Cornell), 4-2 (sv1)
165: #8 Julian Ramirez (Cornell) won by decision over Dalton Harkins (Army West Point), 4-2
174: #4 Chris Foca (Cornell) won by decision over #20 Ben Pasiuk (Army West Point), 6-3
184: Sahm Abdulrazzaq (Army West Point) won by injury default over #6 Jonathan Loew (Cornell)
197: #16 Jacob Cardenas (Cornell) won by decision over Kyle Swartz (Army West Point), 3-1
285: Brendan Furman (Cornell) won by fall over Kade Carlson (Army West Point), 3:25

Cornell 30, Columbia 3
197: #17 Jacob Cardenas (Cornell) won by decision over Jack Wehmeyer (Columbia), 8-2
285: Brendan Furman (Cornell) won by decision over Billy McChesney (Columbia), 5-0
125: #13 Brett Ungar (Cornell) won by decision over #32 Nick Babin (Columbia), 2-1
133: #3 Vito Arujau (Cornell) won by major decision over #30 Angelo Rini (Columbia), 12-3
141: #16 Vince Cornella (Cornell) won by decision over #26 Matthew Kazimir (Columbia), 5-4
149: #1 Yianni Diakomihalis (Cornell) won by major decision over #33 Danny Fongaro (Columbia), 17-5
157: Cole Handlovic (Cornell) won by decision over #22 Cesar Alvan (Columbia), 6-4 (OT)
165: Benny Baker (Cornell) won by decision over David Berkowich (Columbia), 5-2
174: #4 Chris Foca (Cornell) won by major decision over #32 Lenox Wolak (Columbia), 14-3
184: Aaron Ayzerov (Columbia) won by decision over Ethan Hatcher (Cornell), 4-2

* This probably overstates the rivalry. Ramirez won the first by Major Decision, lost the second by injury default with a concussion, lost in the conference tournament by 2, the won the two most recent matchups by 11 and 6 points respectively.

[ugarte]

rereading that, it's funny to see that Cornell used different sources for the rankings each day (since i copied the scoresheets from the Cornell match reports).