Wrestling 2023-24

[ugarte]

About as good a day as the team could have hoped leading up to tomorrows match

yeah, back to back blowouts. a shutout of brown (though their coach, Jordan Leen '09, is probably pretty mad about 125) after a blowout of Harvard, where we only lost two matches. One, at 165 with Ramirez taking a match off and another at 174 - our weakest weight, against Harvard's best wrestler.

[ugarte]

Huge team W over #2 Missouri. More later.

[upprdeck]

hope the injury isnt too bad.

[ugarte]

Huge team W over #2 Missouri. More later.

125: #13 Ungar LBF 2:21 #7 Surtin - After a slow start from both wrestlers, feeling each other out, Surtin whipped Ungar straight to his back and settled in for the pin. Ungar fought hard and stayed in an arch for an almost impossibly long time but wasn't able to belly out. The weight may be a bit unsettled because of Greg Diakomihalis going 2-0 the day before against Brown and Harvard. In particular, Greg D. dominated a ranked Harvard wrestler who Ungar always wrestles close (though he is 3-1, and the weight is probably not actually unsettled.) [Mizzou 6-0]

133: #2 Arujau W 10-9 #27 Moore - An early scramble led to a takedown and back points for Moore, though Arujau got a quick reversal to make the score 6-2 after an escape. In the third period, down 8-3, Arjuau got a TD for 3, released, got another TD for 3 to tie it at 9 and rode out the rest of the match to pick up a riding time point and a 10-9 win. Scrappy finish to what looked like another potential shocker. [Mizzou 6-3]

141: #13 Cornella W 9-6 #23 Edmond - After jumping out to an early 6-1 lead, Cornella appeared to hurt his knee which started an Edmond comeback. Cornella got the knee wrapped and continued the match, but if I'm the Mizzou staff I'm not exactly happy about the way it was reffed. I think Edmond probably got another late takedown before going out of bounds that he didn't get credit for. The way Cornella was limping (even in the handshake line) I don't think he'd have stood a chance in OT. In the short term, a W. In the long term, as upprdeck said, we have to hope that it isn't an ACL injury. [6-6]

149: #28 Fernandez W 4-0 #25 Gioffre - Huge win for Fernandez over a quality opponent. Gioffre must have been worried about losing on RT because Fernandez escaped quickly in the second for a 1-0 lead but Gioffre chose to start the third at neutral. Gioffre never came close to scoring, and Fernandez was more of an aggressor, scoring the only takedown of the match in the closing seconds. [Cornell 9-6]

157: #12 Shapiro WMD 14-4 #5 Mauller - Another dominant win over a top-rated wrestler should lead to a huge jump in Shapiro's ranking. His two-match slip in Las Vegas really should not be weighing him down. He was all over Mauller from the opening whistle and it wasn't close. Mauller is a 3x All-American and Shapiro had no issues. Cornell 13-6

165: #2 Ramirez LMD 13-5 #1 O'Toole - Ramirez wanted this one since O'Toole "stole" his spot on U23 Team USA. (Ramirez won the U23 tournament but O'Toole took bronze Senior nationals, so O'Toole had the right to take the U23 spot. O'Toole ultimately won gold, following up on his back-to-back NCAA titles.) Ramirez jumped out to a 4-0 lead early in the second period, but by the end of the period O'Toole had tied the match. The third period was all O'Toole, seemingly able to snatch Ramirez's left ankle at will. Cornell 13-10

174: Canoyer L 8-2 #6 Mocco - This was a weight where we were expected to drop significant points. Credit to Canoyer for being game and nearly scoring more than once while holding Mocco at bay until very late. In the end, Mocco's significant skill advantage won out but keeping this close and minimizing the damage to the team score is a genuine moral victory. [13-13]


184: #9 Foca WMD 14-1 #11 Whiting - This was never close and but for one or two bad calls this could have been a pin or a tech. Early in the match, Foca whipped Whiting over and probably should have gotten at least a takedown and nearfall points on the edge. It looked like he may have had a pinning move. Alas, the ref ruled that he didn't stay in the circle (this call didn't look as bad on replay). No matter, Foca dominated the match on the mat. Late in the match, up by 13, it appeared that Foca released his opponent for an escape then immediately took him down again to stretch the lead to 15 for the tech fall, but the ref decided that there wasn't enough separation, taking away the escape and the takedown. He nearly got the tech anyway, but Whiting held off the last score. Cornell 17-13

197: #8 Cardenas W 4-0 #3 Elam - Huge win for Cardenas, possibly the most impressive win of his career. Maybe not the most significant, given his win over Beard for the 2023 EIWA title and his run to 8th place at NCAAs, but the best win over an individual opponent. Elam is a 3x AA who finished in third last year. Cardenas hit his signature blast double for the only offensive points of the match and then used excellent positioning to hold the lead. The win also locked up the dual for the Big Red. Cornell 20-13

285: #18 Fernandes L 2-1 #6 Elam - The older Elam brother is coming off an AA finish as well, and was heavily favored in this match. Elam took a 2-0 lead around 40 seconds into the 2d period with a reversal. Fernandes probably tried to hold position too long and should have given up the escape. Elam held the lead by riding out the period. Fernandes' strength is on top, so he took top himself to start the third and rode for the full two minutes, but he was neither able to get back points nor convince the ref to call stalling a second time. A closer match than I expected.

Huge team win: Cornell 20-16

[ugarte]

1/30 Rankings

Not much change anywhere, but to the extent there was any change, Shapiro and Cardenas moved up after beating a top 5 opponent. Ungar slipped a hair after getting pinned by Surtin, as did Ramirez in some rankings after getting majored by #1 (plus two other top 5 guys squared off, so the winner (Carr) moved up and the loser has a win over Ramirez.)

Code Select Expand


WIN Flo Intermat OpenMat AWN WS(ELO) EIWA/Flo  CR
125: Ungar 17 18 16 17 18 23 2/2  12
133: Arujau 1 2 2  3  3 1 2/2      NR
141: Cornella 10 10 12 12 11 15 1/1      12
149: Fernandez NR NR 26 14      NR 31 1/1      24
157: Shapiro 6 7 7  6  7 2 1/1       9
165: Ramirez 7 4 4        2  5 4 1/1       3
174: ????? NR NR NR NR NR     91 NR/10     NR
184: Foca   5 7 7  9  5 3 1/1       6
197: Cardenas 5 7 7  6  8 5 2/2       7
285: Fernandes 17 20 17 NR NR 20 5/5      17
TEAM DUAL: 9 8 8  9 xx 7
TEAM NCAA: 4 7 8  5 xx 2



WIN Expected tweaks, but not a lot of movement.
Flo Shapiro/Cardenas bumps also gave us a bump for the team tournament projection, since it puts them on the podium.
Intermat Shapiro bump, as expected.
The Open Mat No significant change because they were crazy high on Fernandez (a puzzler tbh) and Shapiro already. Cardenas gets the bump. Foca for some reason slides a spot but I'm not paying attention to other schools so...
Amateur Wrestling News No love for the big Cardenas win over Mocco.
Wrestlestat The computer loves Shapiro and Foca's strength of schedule.
Coaches' Ranking No updates on this for a while.
Conference Rankings Have not updated. EIWA updates monthly, Flo does it ... unpredictably?

[ugarte]

Rolled through Columbia. Doing this off the top of my head.

125: Ungar with a nice win, getting a pair of takedowns. Cornell 3-0
133: Arujau dominating a pretty weak opponent. Cornell 8-0
141: Botello wrestles in place of Cornella who is still recovering from the knee injury in the Missouri dual. Cornell 8-3
149: Fernandez can't quite get the last takedown at the buzzer for the tech, dominant 20-6 MD. Cornell 12-3
157: Shapiro dominant. Cornell 17-3
165: Ramirez dominant. Cornell 22-3
174: Baker got robbed of an early takedown and couldn't pull off the upset. Cornell 22-6
184: Foca with his second loss of the year to Ayzerov. Inexplicable given how they've wrestled against others. Cornell 22-9
197: Cardenas gives up a takedown but still rolls to a major. Cornell 26-9
285: Fernandes no trouble at all and gets a first period pin. Cornell 32-9

Foca loss so puzzling. He nearly got a few takedowns in the first but couldn't close. Ayzerov outwresled him in the second and third.

[ugarte]

Bummer of a day in international wrestling. Yianni D was trying to reclaim his spot as the US rep for 65kg against Nick Lee but in the first bout of the best of three, he gave himself a concussion on an early takedown. He was up 3-2 after one period but in the second period he was clearly wobbly, lost 12-3 and forfeited the second match. I assume he'll be back for the Olympic trials in April but I was hoping he'd get Nick Lee back for taking the spot at 2023 Worlds.

[ugarte]

2/7 Rankings

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33 (because that's how many go to NCAAs). Whatever credit we thought we might get from winning a dual against #2 Missouri went up in smoke after Mizzou got absolutely blown out by Okie State and their ranking collapsed.

Code Select Expand


WIN Flo Intermat OpenMat AWN WS(ELO) EIWA/Flo  CR
125: Ungar 17 18 14 19 NR 25 2/2  12
133: Arujau 1 2 1  3  3 1 2/2      NR
141: Cornella 10 10 12 13 12 16 1/1      12
149: Fernandez NR 29 23 13      NR 26 1/1      24
157: Shapiro 5 7 6  5  3 2 1/1       9
165: Ramirez 7 4 4        4  5 4 1/1       3
174: ????? NR NR NR NR NR     95* NR/10     NR
184: Foca   9 10 7  9  7 3 1/1       6
197: Cardenas 5 7 7  6  8 5 2/2       7
285: Fernandes 17 18 17 20 NR 18 5/5      17
TEAM DUAL: 10 9 8 10 xx 8
TEAM NCAA: 8 7 5  5 xx 2



WIN Tiny movement individually, aside from Foca, who slides after his loss to Columbia. but the net is a drop in team rankings.
Flo Fernandez finally ranked by Flo. Foca takes a hit here too.
Intermat No slide for Foca. Big bump in tournament projection. Weird.
The Open Mat Also no slide for Foca. Fernandez keeps climbing! Fernandes returns to the rankings.
Amateur Wrestling News Shapiro jumps up, small slide for Foca.  
Wrestlestat The computer thinks backup Greg D. is having a better season at 125 and ranks him at 9.
Coaches' Ranking No updates on this for a while.
Conference Rankings Have not updated. EIWA updates monthly, Flo does it ... unpredictably?

* Baker gets most of the starts but Canoyer is also seeing action. The highest ranked among the 174s is technically Hansen (at 73) but he hasn't wrestled in a dual or at 174 in months and has mostly wrestled in Opens at 184.

[ugarte]

Big dual against Penn tonight after rolling up Princeton yesterday. We lost only at 174 and got plenty of bonus from our big guns.

[mountainred]

Following up on ugarte's post, Cornell beats Penn 26-8 to win its 43rd wrestling title (and maybe the last one decided by dual record.)  The dual was closer than you might think from the score, only one bonus point win for Cornell, but still a nice win.  Three duals left before post-season, starting with a showdown at NC State next weekend.

[ugarte]

Rolled over Penn. In all of the ranked matchups, we won. The two weights where Penn had ranked wrestlers and we didn't (141 (Cornella is injured) and 174 (the "hole" in our lineup)), we lost. Sement was chippy the whole match, aggressively slapping Ramirez's head and got a penalty point at the end of it and was trying to encourage Ramirez to fight, as Ramirez waved and said "bye bye now." Wish Arujau had finished off his third straight major of Colaiocco.

157 - #6 Shapiro W 6-3 #23 Revano [Cornell 3-0]
165 – #4 Ramirez W 5-1 Sement [Cornell 6-0]
174 - Baker L 2-9 #6 Incontrera [Cornell 6-3]
184 - #7 Foca W 3-0 #17 Hale [Cornell 9-3]
197 – #7 Cardenas W 7-0 #24 Urbas [Cornell 12-3]
285 – #12 Fernandes WTF 15-0 Stout [Cornell 17-3]
125 – #16 Ungar W 4-2 #33 Gallagher [Cornell 20-3]
133 – #2 Arujau W 11-4 #9 Colaiocco [Cornell 23-3]
141 - Botello LTF 0-15 #16 Composto [Cornell 23-8]
149 – #23 Fernandez W 8-7 Swisher Cornell wins 26-8

[ugarte]

Big dual against Penn tonight after rolling up Princeton yesterday. We lost only at 174 and got plenty of bonus from our big guns.

Never did get back to this:

133: #2 Arujau WTF 19-4 Pierson [Cornell 5-0]
141: Botello W 4-2 Martino [Cornell 8-0]
149: #23 Fernandez W 11-7 No. 25 Rivera [Cornell 11-0]
157: #6 Shapiro WTF 20-5 Camillaci [Cornell 16-0]
165: #4 Ramirez WMD 15-3 Bergey [Cornell 20-0]
174: Canoyer L 1-5 Squires [Cornell 20-3]
184: #7 Foca WMD 17-4 #22 Duggan [Cornell 24-3]
197: #7 Cardenas W 4-2 #12 Stout [Cornell 27-3]
285: #17 Fernandes WMD 8-0 #30 Cover [Cornell 31-3]
125: #14 Ungar WMD 10-2 Heethuis [FINAL: Cornell 35-3]

Seems petty but frustrating that Ramirez and Foca didn't win by techs.

We close the season with duals against NC State, Appalachian State and Binghamton. NC State is going to be a tough one. Not a great matchup.

[ugarte]

2/13 Rankings

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33 (because that's how many go to NCAAs). As of the time of posting, AWN hasn't posted their new rankings. I'll update when they do.Updated, along with RPI (standard RPI formula, which I think shows what a tough schedule Cornell had this year).

Code Select Expand


WIN Flo Intermat OpenMat AWN WS(ELO) EIWA/Flo  CR   RPI
125: Ungar 17 16 13 19 20 21 2/2  15    3
133: Arujau 1 2 2  3  3 1 2/2       3   NE
141: Cornella 10 10 12 13 12 17 1/1      11    6
149: Fernandez NR 28 20 14      NR 22 1/1      20   11
157: Shapiro 5 7 6  5  3 2 1/1       7    2
165: Ramirez 6 4 4        6  5 4 1/1       6    9
174: ????? NR NR NR NR NR     99* NR/13     NR   NR
184: Foca   8 10 7  9  7 3 1/1       6    9
197: Cardenas 5 7 7  6  8 5 2/2       7    2
285: Fernandes 17 17 17 19 NR 18 5/5      16   12
TEAM DUAL: 10 10 8  9 xx 4
TEAM NCAA: 5 11 6  9 xx 2



WIN Status quo on the team dual ranking but bounced back to 5 for the tournament. Ramirez and Foca up a notch, which helps a lot in projected team points given their already high rankings.
Flo Couple of people up a tick but the team rankings still slid a bit.
Intermat Tournament projection slides a tick. Not much change except a nice bump for Fernandez.
The Open Mat Weird slip for Ramirez after a couple of "close" matches where he was never threatened.
Amateur Wrestling News Not updated yet (or, more likely, they forgot to post to the website)
Wrestlestat Wildly high team rankings tbh.
Coaches' Ranking/ RPI Updated. Arujau doesn't have enough matches to get an RPI but it doesn't matter since he meets other criteria.
Conference Rankings Have not updated. Flo updated their EIWA rankings last week after I posted.

* Baker gets most of the starts but Canoyer (135) is also seeing action. The highest ranked among the 174s is technically Hansen (at 75) but he hasn't wrestled in a dual or at 174 in months and has mostly wrestled in Opens at 184.

[ugarte]

2/19 Rankings

NB: WIN, Open Mat and AWN only rank to 20; Flo and Intermat rank to 33 (because that's how many go to NCAAs). I think CR and RPI come out again after this weekend, before the conference tournaments, because they are part of the formula to determine how many automatic bids each conference gets at each weight. They are then released again AFTER the conference tournament but not until they are announced along with the at-large bids (they are part of the at-large formula).

Ungar and Foca both lost in upsets so there was minor slippage. A couple of places moved Cornella a tick because of his layoff. Not much material change elsewhere.

Code Select Expand


WIN Flo Intermat OpenMat AWN WS(ELO) EIWA/Flo  CR   RPI
125: Ungar 19 17 15 20 20 21 2/2  15    3
133: Arujau 1 2 2  3  3 1 2/2       3   NE
141: Cornella 10 10 12 15 12 16 1/1      11    6
149: Fernandez NR 28 21 14      20 25 1/1      20   11
157: Shapiro 5 7 6  5  3 1 1/1       7    2
165: Ramirez 6 4 4        6  5 4 1/1       6    9
174: Baker NR NR NR NR NR     54 NR/13     NR   NR
184: Foca   11 11 8  9  7 3 1/1       6    9
197: Cardenas 6 7 7  6  7 5 2/2       7    2
285: Fernandes 16 17 17 19 20 18 5/5      16   12
TEAM DUAL: 10 10 7  9 xx 4
TEAM NCAA: 6 9 8 11 xx 2



WIN See above.
Flo See above.
Intermat See above.
The Open Mat See above.
Amateur Wrestling News Fernandez and Fernandes join the rankings!
Wrestlestat A great weekend in North Carolina has solidified Baker as the starter and vaulted him up in the WS rankings and above teammate Hansen (who has more recently been a backup at 184).
Conference Rankings Unchanged.
Coaches' Ranking / RPI Unchanged.

[ugarte]

This past weekend was the final dual of the season, a home match against Binghamton. The full recap of Senior Day is here. Some notes from dual and the projection:

125: Brett Ungar dominated at Binghamton. Scored a lot. Need him to show more of this aggression against better wrestlers. He likes to keep the score low but his reticence has been a problem. To be fair, he has only one bad loss, but he also doesn't have a signature win to give confidence that he can surprise you. The conference will likely earn enough bids (including one credited to him) that unless he totally duffs the tournament, he'll get an AQ and even if he does duff it, his profile will probably get him an at-large. If he's going to get as close to AA as he did last year he has to (a) get another "easy" draw in the consolation bracket or (b) step up his offense. A first round loss likely dooms his chances so getting his seed as high as possible is critical

133: Vito Arujau rested again this weekend, but he'll back for EIWA. His only loss is to Lehigh's Crookham, and I was about to question whether Crookham will even be there but after missing a month, he tested whatever was bothering him over the weekend and beat a scrub handily. He is going to cruise to the EIWA final, with a caveat. EIWA is weird; it's possible that the matches that both of them skipped will mean very stupid seeding at 133 and set up a semifinal match between the two best wrestlers in the conference (and the national rankings). Arujau has earned a conference allocation and will get an at-large bid regardless of conference performance. Hope whatever has been nagging him isn't a problem at NCAAs.

Meanwhile, we sent a surprising substitute out to wrestle at Binghamton. True frosh Marco Milani, who had been backing up at 125, wrestled in his first dual instead of Ethan Qureshi. I suspect there was a handshake agreement to send out a backup's backup because Binghamton rested their own starter as well and sent out a grad student in his first D-I dual meet, in what would be his final match, and he's from Syracuse so his parents probably came. No mercy, though, as Milani won by tech, 17-1.

141: Vince Cornella is back. Very big deal. His knee injury against Missouri kept him out of the lineup for a month. It looked pretty bad and I wasn't sure how much to believe the word from Coach Grey that he'd be back. Other than a knee wrap, he looked fine and won by major. He doesn't have any bad losses, nor does he have any signature wins. The weight class is competitive but he's still the favorite and he looks to have a seeding at NCAAs in the 12-15 range.

149: Ethan Fernandez continued his surprising season after jumping up to 149 from 133 to fill the gap in the lineup. Easy win at Binghamton and should go into EIWA as the 1 seed. Had some close matches but he's looking like he's going to be in the 18-22 range at NCAAs unless the conference tournament goes awry.

157: Meyer Shapiro took the weekend off. He's going to be the top seed in EIWA and probably a top 5 seed at NCAAs. His blip in December is well behind him.

Wrestling in his stead, Wyatt Yapoujian, in his first dual for the Big Red. At first, this selection confused me because he's a junior. He was probably selected as a representative of his brother, Colton, who was a 5-star recruit who suffered one injury after another and effectively retired from competition before his senior year but stayed on the team and was honored with the other seniors. In his brother's honor, he won a low scoring match, 1-0 with the only point coming from riding time.

165: Julian Ramirez took the week off but he'll be fine for EIWA. Should run through the conference and get a top 5 seed at NCAAs.

In his place, there really wasn't a senior avaialable. His backup at 165 is a frosh who hasn't wrestled, there are no seniors at 157, and while Luke Gorg is listed at 174, my spidey sense tells me that there was no way he was actually making weight given the unlikelihood that he'd get to wrestle in the spring. He's had 12 matches in four years and hadn't seen the mat since November. So we sent out junior Brody Oleksak, who kept it close but lost 4-2 to a top 20 opponent.

174: Benny Baker continues a decent end-of-season run, with his third win in a row, and second over a ranked wrestler. He probably doesn't have the profile to earn a bid for the conference, but he snuck into the top 33 in RPI and if his latest wins (including over CR #31) get him some votes and a place on the CR that would be a neat reward but it's very unlikely. Tough row to hoe to get through the conference bracket - there will probably be five bids available and the top five in the conference have been a cut above - but that's why they play the games.

184: Chris Foca got the only takedown of the match but was a bit underwhelming against Nolan. He's looking at a seed in the 8-12 range and maybe lower if he doesn't win the conference. He's lost to Columbia's Ayezerov twice and has to get over that hump at 184. That said, he doesn't have to worry about getting a bid regardless of how the conference tournament goes, it will just determine how hard the path is.

197: Jacob Cardenas faced another top 10 wrestler in Binghamton's ancient Louie DePrez, who got a surprise medical redshirt that allowed him to trade his assistant coach's suit in for another season on the mat. DePrez dominated the match, a loss for Cardenas that probably makes him the 3 seed at the conference tournament. Cardenas still probably slots in from 7-9 at NCAAs. All of his losses are to top 8 guys and he has a win over Elam and enough top 20 guys that his tough schedule will get his record the respect it deserves.

285: Lewis Fernandes didn't have to face Binghamton's tough heavy and he made short work of the backup. Fernandes has no signature wins and a couple of not-great losses (to go with a very tough schedule), so he's probably going to get a seed in the 18-20 range at NCAAs. The weight class  is really deep in EIWA, and 8 bids are likely. He probably won't need to rely on an at-large bid.

We'll find out the allocations and the updated CR and official RPI in the coming weeks, in advance of the EIWA tournament at Bucknell on March 8-9. Cornell probably earned the conference bids at every weight except 174 and it's not impossible that we could send 10 to the big show. Once we get there, we will probably have four guys ranked in the top 8 (Arujau, Shapiro, Ramirez and Cardenas) with Foca and Cornella sitting right outside the podium seeds and looking dangerous.

This upcoming EIWA tournament is Cornell's last, as the Ivies have decided to take their branding and go home, leaving both conferences with automatic bids but walking away from a cool longstanding rivalry with Lehigh. It's a bummer (unless they regularly start holding the tournament at Columbia).