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Tomorrow night, when the No. 14 Red takes on Bloomsburg, destiny could become reality. In the final home meet of his career, senior co-captain Travis Lee will try to become the career wins record holder at Cornell. “The program has been around for 99 years,” said head coach Rob Koll. “It’s amazing a guy from Hawaii is going to break the record. It shows how consistent and healthy he’s been. He’s had to wrestle a ridiculous number of matches.” Lee, ranked second nationally (NWCA/Intermat poll) in the 133-pound weight class, is tied with Mark Fergeson ’93 for the all-time lead with 134 wins. Last weekend, he tied the record with two wins and lifted his season victory total to 28. Lee has only one loss this year and a mere 13 in his career. His opponent this weekend, Tony Curto, is 16-1 this season and is ranked 25th in one poll. “I do consider [the record] a great honor,” Lee said. “There are many great wrestlers that have come through Cornell and to break the record, it’s tremendous.” Bloomsburg is 8-5 this season and is currently ranked as high as 22nd in the nation. The Huskies are coming off a victory over then-No.25 Edinboro. Aside from Curto, the team features three nationally ranked wrestlers including James Bertulis (165-pounds), Bryce Hasseman (174), and Chad Hoare (197). The Red expects to win, but the results could be tight. “If you look on paper, every single match could be very close,” Koll said. “We think that we’re a point better in every match, but in reality it may not go that way. There’s not single weight class, outside of Travis and Dustin, that the Bloomsburg doesn’t think it can win.” The Red enters Saturday’s competition on a tear. Since the National Duals in January, the Red has recorded three shutouts and won a third-straight Ivy League title. Last weekend, the Red demolished Harvard, Brown, and Boston University. The team has four other wrestlers aside from Lee and junior co-captain No. 1 Dustin Manotti (149), who are nationally ranked in the top-20. “We expect to beat those guys,” said senior co-captain Tyler Baier. “We’ve been wrestling solid and our team’s really peaking right now. There’s no reason we can’t shut these guys out as well.” The Friedman Wrestling Center has a clock counting down to the NCAA Championships. For the Red seniors, the clock is also counting down the remaining days of their collegiate career. On Saturday, seniors Lee, Baier, Matt Bogumil, Tyler Shovlin, Andy Breiner and Ryan Gruver will bid farewell to Friedman Wrestling Center. “This is really it,” Baier said. “This my last chance to get out in front of the Cornell crowd. A few years back, I thought, man this is taking forever. But now I don’t want that clock to go any faster. I want it to slow down. It’s starting to kick, in but its really making me appreciate being here.” As for Lee, while he is honored to likely hold the title for most career Cornell wins after Saturday, he has his eyes set on one goal. “[The record] is exciting, but I’m still trying to focus at the end of the year because that’s really what i want to focus on and that’s really what counts,” Lee said.Archived article by James RichSun Staff Writer
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Last weekend, the women’s basketball team (2-19, 0-8 Ivy) put on its best showing of the Ivy League season yet, suffering single-digit losses to Princeton and Penn. The Red needs its learning curve to stay on the upward track, as it hosts league-leading Dartmouth (11-8, 7-0 Ivy) tomorrow and third-place Harvard (13-7, 5-2 Ivy) on Saturday. “We took a lot from it,” said head coach Dayna Smith in regards to last weekend. “Right now, that’s what it’s all about — learning from it.” In terms of rebounding, taking care of the ball, and team defense, the Red reached a new level last weekend. Against Penn, the Red shut down the Quakers’ inside game and outscored the fourth-place team in the second half. Smith knows the Red will need to pick up right where it left off in order to play with the Green and the Crimson. In the last weekend series against these teams, the Red were outscored by a combined 60 points. “We need to come out and play with the type of intensity we’ve shown on the defensive end in the comebacks against Penn and Princeton,” Smith said. “When we play aggressively and use our full-court press, we cause other teams to play an up-tempo game. We need to start out that way and not have to get back in it.” The opening minutes made all the difference in the first match-up against the Green, when junior Angie Soriaga swished her first seven attempts — including five three-pointers — giving Dartmouth a solid start in its 90-57 victory. Smith knows the team cannot let this happen again. “We need to take her out of the game as much as possible,” she said. “It was disappointing to allow her so many open shots the last weekend.” The Green, which is undefeated in league action, has three other players averaging in double figures to back up Soriaga. “They’re getting stronger and stronger every game,” Smith said. “They’re making it difficult for teams to key in on one thing on the offensive end.” The Crimson will not give the Red any room to relax as well. In the previous showdown between the two teams, the Crimson cruised to a 78-51 victory behind senior forward Reka Cserny’s 30 points and 10 rebounds. “The last games were ugly,” Smith said. “We didn’t play as well as we’d like to, or as well as we’re capable of playing.” The Red has faced other teams with strong inside games since taking on the Crimson, and Smith thinks her players — the tallest of which is 6-1 — have learned to play with the big girls. “They’re learning we’re gonna have to get a body on people and box out,” she said. “I think they learned that with good positioning, height doesn’t matter. They also saw how important it is for guards to pressure out front.” It will take a team effort from the Red to shut down the Harvard line-up, which shot 50% from the floor in the teams’ last game. “They lost a though one to Brown, but they’re still as good as they were two or three weeks ago,” Smith said. “But we’re going into it with nothing to lose.” The Red has everything to prove, and is ready for its chance to do just that. Seven-time Ivy League rookie of the week Lindsey Krasna leads the way with 12.8 points per game. Sophomore Claire Perry chips in with 10.1 a game, and four other players are averaging between five and 10 points per game. “Now we’re getting shots we want,” Smith said. “[Sophomores] Amy Lyon and Katherine Stritzl are stepping up in leadership roles. The key word for us is consistency. We’re making huge steps every day, every weekend.” Archived article by Olivia DwyerSun Staff Writer