Wrestling Ends Dual Season

It was a weekend of ups and downs for the wrestling team, as the Lions faced three teams in two days on a New England road trip. Columbia suffered a heartbreaking 21-20 defeat to Brown in Providence, R.I. on Friday and a narrow 17-16 loss to Bucknell in Cambridge, Mass. on Saturday. The Light Blue prevented a three-game sweep by winning a crucial match against Harvard, 27-16 in Cambridge. The win over the Crimson allowed Columbia (7-5, 3-4 EIWA) to finish their dual-meet season 3-2 in Ivy League play, moving the Lions into a tie for second place in Ivy League play with Penn. It was Columbia's best finish in the Ivy League since 1986.

In spite of their place in the league standings, the team was frustrated by the narrow margin of the upset losses to Brown and Bucknell. The Light Blue opened the meet against Brown with a 5-3 win by junior Brandon Kinney at 125 pounds. The Bears responded by winning the 133-pound class in another close bout, as Jeff Schell beat senior Matt DeLorenzo 2-0. The 141-pound match proved to be contentious, as Brown's Mark Savino triumphed over junior Jerome Greco. During the match, Greco was repeatedly penalized for stalling, and he was eventually disqualified from the match, costing the Lions a full six points.

Columbia managed to bounce back, and the Light Blue won the next five matches. At 149 pounds, freshman Matt Dunn scored a decisive 9-2 win over Bryan Tracy, and senior Devin Mesanko beat Tom Fazio 2-0 at 157 pounds. Senior Dustin Tillman won a 13-5 decision over Lenny Marandino at 165 pounds, and seniors Matt Palmer at 174 pounds and Justin Barent at 184 pounds followed by winning their matches, 16-4 over Chris Musser and 11-4 over Matt Gevelinger, respectively. The Lions' winning streak ended at 197 pounds, when another controversial decision swung the match to the Bears. Josh Serene used head coach Brendan Buckley considered to be a questionable series of moves on Nick Sommerfeld, at some points appearing to choke the Columbia senior.

"Usually what happens is it's called a potentially dangerous move, and they stop the match, and they get a fresh start," Buckley said. "But it happened time and time again-it was ridiculous. It was a really unfortunate situation."

Afterwards, freshman heavyweight Kevin Lester was pinned in 46 seconds by Levon Mock, and the six-point result pushed Brown ahead to a 21-20 victory in the meet.

"We wrestled well enough to win the match. It [was] just a wrong turn of events," Buckley said. "They had one pin and two really strange victories."

The Lions opened their meet Saturday in Cambridge against Harvard with two strong performances. Kinney pinned Ryan Fitzgerald in 1:44, and DeLorenzo won a 14-3 major decision over Simon Orozco. The Crimson answered with two wins at 141 and 149 pounds, as Max Meltzer pinned Greco in 6:16 and J.P. O'Connor shut out Dunn 12-0. The momentum again shifted to Columbia, as sophomore Derek Sickles won a 10-4 bout over Bobby Latessa, and Tillman and Palmer followed with 7-3 and 22-7 wins over Frank Colletta and Fred Rowsey, respectively. Barent suffered a setback at 184 pounds when he was pinned in 4:01 by Louis Caputo. The Light Blue ended the meet on a high note, however, as an 8-2 win by Sommerfeld over Jon Butler at 197 and a 13-10 victory by Lester over Andrew Knapp secured a 27-16 win for Columbia.

In the second part of their Saturday doubleheader, the Lions opened their meet against Bucknell with a 13-7 win by Kinney over Greg Hart. The Bison took the 133- and 141-pound classes, as David Marble and Zach Galligan won 10-4 and 11-3 decisions over DeLorenzo and Greco. Dunn and Sickles took the next 149- and 157-pound matches for Columbia, defeating Jack Conroy 14-2 and Brantley Hooks 9-2, respectively. Andy Rendos topped Tillman 7-1 to take the 165-pound class for Bucknell, and Palmer and Barent moved to win close matches at 174 and 184 pounds. The momentum swung back to the Bison for the last two matches, and the 6-1 win by Eric Lapotsky over Sommerfeld and 20-11 decision by George Hingson over Kevin Lester were just enough to give Bucknell the edge over the Lions, 17-16.

With the end of the dual-meet season, the EIWA tournament lies ahead for Columbia. Despite the mixed results at the end, Buckley remains confident that his team will be more competitive in the tournament setting, and that the two-week break before the tournament will give the wrestlers a chance to rebound.

"We'll fine-tune a few things here and there, and we'll watch our videotape, but we're not trying to make any changes," he said. "Our goal is to get the guys fresh and feeling really good mentally and physically two weeks from now."

Columbia will take to the mats again at the EIWA Championships on March 2 in East Stroudsburg, Penn.