The wrestling team had an impressive showing this past weekend at the EIWA championships in Philadelphia, PA — claiming two individual titles and qualifying eight wrestlers for the NCAA tournament.
Junior All-American Travis Lee captured the 133 pound title for the Red while senior Matt Greenberg won the 197 pound weight class in his final EIWA tournament. Along with Lee and Greenberg, junior Joe Mazzurco reached the finals in the tournament before falling in the championship to Lehigh’s Troy Letters. These three members of the team will be joined by junior Mike Mormile (125), sophomore Dustin Manotti (149), senior Scott Roth (157), freshman Jerry Rindali (184) and junior Tyler Baier (174) at the NCAA tournament. The eight wrestlers from Cornell who earned a bid this year match last year’s mark of wrestlers who went to the tournament.
Overall, the Red finished third in the tournament with 118.5 points, only two points behind second place Penn. Lehigh emerged as the eventual victor with 145 points. Rutgers finished fourth followed by Army, Navy, Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Princeton, ESU, Franklin and Marshall and American.
The meet started on Friday with eight wrestlers advancing in their respective weight classes for the Red.
Mormile, the No. 3 seed in the tournament, won his first match on Saturday against Greg Pace of Brown, 9-1. He then fell in his first match on Sunday to No. 2 seed Mario Stuart (Lehigh) before rebounding to defeat Jeff Sato of Columbia to take third place overall. Lee steadily worked his way through the competition over the two days, soundly defeating Dare Ajibade of Rutgers, Matt Evenleth of Penn, and then dismantling Matt Ciasulli of Lehigh to earn the title at the 133 pound weight class.
Freshman Ryan Bridge represented the Red in the 141 pound weight class by winning his first match against Danile Lobsenz of American. He then dropped his next two against Harvard’s Max Meltzer and Brown’s Mike Ashton.
Manotti suffered a disappointing loss to David Dies of Brown 1-0 after reaching the semifinals. He was able to comeback, however, in the consolation match against Matt Anderson of Lehigh 12-3 to take third place in the tournament.
Roth had a strong showing in the 157-pound weight class for Cornell, placing third overall with his only loss coming against Derek Zinck of Lehigh. Mazzurco earned victories in the 165 pound weight class over Richard Ferguson of Penn and Chris Ressa of Rutgers on his way to the finals. There, he fell to top-seeded Letters, 9-4.
Tyler Baier had some trouble in the 174-pound weight class, losing matches to both Brad Dillon of Lehigh and Matt Herrington of Penn en route to finishing fourth overall.
Rinaldi also contributed to a strong performance in the tournament for the Red with a third place finish in the 184 pound weight class after going into the tournament ranked No. 5. This included an 11-2 victory over Paul Veleki of Penn in the consolation match. His only loss was to the No. 1 Travis Frick of Lehigh.
Greenberg dominated the 197-pound weight class, rolling over his first two opponents before coming out on top in two close matches against Thayer Paxton of Navy and Marcus Schontube of Penn.
Junior heavyweight Matt Bogumil faced some tough competition, dropping both of his matches this weekend against Tanner Garrett of Navy and Paul Weiber of Lehigh.
The NCAA tournament starts Mar. 18 in St. Louis.
Archived article by Chris Callanan