The wrestling team headed into its games against Penn and No. 10 Oregon State over the weekend with momentum from its wins against Brown and Harvard earlier in January.
Cornell faced Penn at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Friedman Wrestling Center and defeated the Quakers, 24-9. Highlights from the day included senior Kyle Dake’s performance, as he picked up his fourth-straight pin for his eleventh fall this season. The squad also got wins out of freshman Nahshon Garrett, sophomore Bricker Dixon, junior Chris Villalonga, junior Jesse Shanaman, senior Steve Bosak and sophomore Jacob Aiken-Phillips.
The match against No. 10 Oregon State on Sunday did not go as well, as the Red fell to the Beavers, 23-20.
Four wrestlers won their matches by bonus points. Bosak, Garrett, Dake and freshman Duke Pickett all recorded points for the Red as it tried to sneak past Oregon State.
The bout eventually came down to the heavyweight match. Sophomore Jace Bennett moved up a weight class but was unable to take down No. 4 Chad Hanke in the final match of the day.
Bennett had the first takedown about 20 seconds into the match, but Hanke was able to reverse him. After an escape by Bennett, Hanke added another takedown, making the score 7-3 in favor of Oregon State. Hanke was eventually able to catch Bennett during a scramble to win by fall, giving Oregon State the overall victory in the match.
Next weekend, the Red will take on Hofstra at 1 p.m. Saturday and then continue to Columbia at 6 p.m. to close out the Ivy circuit.
Original Author: Haley Velasco