Wrestling Heads to Pennsylvania for Mat-Town USA Tournament

As students head home for the Thanksgiving break, the wrestling team will travel to Lock Haven, Penn. on Saturday to compete in the Mat-Town USA wrestling tournament. This will be Columbia’s second wrestling tournament of the season after competing in the East Stroudsburg Open last Saturday.

The Open was an individual tournament rather than a dual meet, like those the Lions usually face during league season. Instead of schools acquiring allotted points as a team for each wrestler placed, individual wrestlers competed at each weight against competitors from dozens of other schools. Some of the schools present last week had top programs, such as Virginia Tech, Hofstra, Virginia, and Drexel. Despite the abundance of teams, the Lions managed to hold their own, with two first-place finishes and one second-place among the 10 weight classes. Senior Brandon Kinney and junior Derek Sickles took first at 125 pounds and 157 pounds, respectively. Senior Nick Sommerfeld finished second at 197 pounds, behind Jon Oplinger of Drexel. The results were all the more impressive considering that a Columbia wrestler had not placed first at East Stroudsburg since Matt Palmer, who graduated last year as a 174-pound All-American.

In addition to Kinney, Sickles, and Sommerfeld, other Columbia wrestlers had respectable performances on Saturday. Sophomore Matt Dunn was stopped one match short of the 149-pound semifinals, after pinning a Maryland wrestler earlier in 2:30. Junior 141-pounder Sal Tirico, ranked 18th in the country, also made it to the quarterfinals before coming up short against Tyler Nauman of Pittsburgh. Junior Andy Geving scored a major upset at 174 pounds when he bested Virginia Tech’s Eric Decker, who was ranked 17th in the nation. The confidence from a strong showing at East Stroudsburg will help prepare the team for Mat-Town USA this weekend.

“I like where we’re at,” head coach Brendan Buckley said. “I thought we wrestled well last weekend. We’re in really good shape right now.”

There will likely be several Pennsylvania schools at the Mat-Town tournament, including Pittsburgh, Drexel, Bucknell, Penn State, and Ivy rival Penn. The tournament will serve as a preview of the upcoming season for Columbia, as the Lions will meet several of these teams on Nov. 30 at the Las Vegas Invitational and will play Drexel, Bucknell, and Penn during the regular dual meet season in January and February. Several of these schools have strong wrestling programs, but the difficulty has not fazed Buckley and his team.

“There’ll be some nationally-ranked kids at this tournament, but our goal is to go to this tournament and dominate,” Buckley said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to do that. I think we’ve got the ability to send several guys to the finals.”

The Light Blue takes to the mats Saturday morning in Lock Haven, Penn.