“Going head to head with two highly ranked wrestling teams, on two consecutive days can be a real challenge. Watching your wrestlers oust Harvard and Brown in back to back decisive victories is a little easier,” said wrestling head coach Rob Koll.
On Friday afternoon the Red grapplers faced off with the Brown Bears in a heated dual in Newman Arena.
“Although Brown is ranked below Harvard in the polls, I was a lot more apprehensive about facing its squad on Friday than Harvard’s on Saturday. I think Brown is an underrated team with a dangerously strong group of kids,” explained Koll.
If the Red was anywhere as cautious as its coach in its approach to handling Brown, it didn’t show it, rolling over the Bears 23-14.
Three matches into the afternoon, with their eyes on the prize, the grapplers rallied around an 11-0 lead and never looked back.
Notably, at 133, Alejandro Alvarez came up with a enormous win over Brown’s Rob Apgar, in a 5-4 decision. Apgar had beaten Alvarez when they faced off earlier this season.
Koll excitedly described Alvarez’s performance as “truly remarkable, especially if you could have seen how sick he was going into this weekend.”
Brown showed some signs of life with victorious outings in four of the last seven matches, but the coffin was sealed long before, as the Red grapplers counted their hatched chickens and switched their focus toward Harvard.
On Saturday, same place, same time, the Red dropped Harvard.
Keeping in form, Cornell shot off to an early 18-0 lead and left Harvard somewhere in a cloud of dust.
One spectator commented, “I’m surprised the Harvard wrestler dn’t try ear-biting to get them out of this one. Once the last match was completed, the Red celebrated its fourth Ivy win of the season, with a 28-12 victory over Harvard. Cornell moved to 4-1 in the Ivy League and 6-3 overall.
The most impressive showing of the afternoon came from Sophomore Scott Roth, who at 165 knocked off one of Harvard’s very best, Patrick O’Donnell, who had defeated Red Captain Clint Wattenberg on two occasions last season.
Proceeds from this weekend’s matches went to the Ithaca Hospicare. Almost $4,000 dollars was raised over the weekend to benefit locals in urgent need of medical assistance.
Archived article by Adam Zwecker