Northwestern edges out Tigers in Chicago

The Princeton wrestling team was just shy of a perfect weekend, as the squad posted an impressive 3-1 mark in its four matches at the Windy City Duals on Saturday.

The grapplers started strong on Saturday morning, as they took six of the final seven individual bouts to secure a 26-11 victory over Eastern Michigan. Quick work was made against Davidson and Cal Poly by 48-3 and 35-6 margins, respectively. But head coach Chris Ayres’s squad fell just short of taking down the hosts, No. 16 Northwestern, losing 21-18.

Strong performances came from across the lineup, particularly from the sophomore class. 141-pounder Jordan Laster, 174-pounder Troy Murtha and 184-pounder Brett Harner all posted perfect marks on the day, as did junior 157-pounder Chris Perez. Senior 149-pounder Adam Krop, junior 197-pounder Abram Ayala and freshman 165-pounder Jonathan Schleifer also posted 3-1 marks, both with lone losses to nationally ranked opponents.

The most action unsurprisingly came in the final match against Northwestern. After the Wildcats took the first two bouts, Laster got Princeton on the board with a 5-3 victory over Jameson Oster, who InterMat had at No. 18 in the nation less than two weeks before. Krop, ranked No. 20 in the nation by InterMat, then battled hard against the defending national champion and current No. 1 Jason Tsirtsis, but ultimately fell by a 4-2 decision. Schleifer battled hard against No. 8 Pierce Harger, but also fell in a 5-1 decision. After huge victories from Murtha and Harner, Ayala, ranked No. 11 in the nation, fell in a heartbreaking 9-8 decision to No. 9 Alex Polizzi. With the team score 18-17 in the Tigers’ favor, the Wildcats’ heavyweight, No. 1 Mike McMullan, secured a major decision over sophomore Ray O’Donnell to clinch the match for Northwestern.

Despite strong performances across the board, the Tigers found the Northwestern match to be a big disappointment.

“We really wanted to beat Northwestern, so that last match hurt,” Harner said. “We all wrestled tough, but there were a few moments here and there where we might have been able to save a few team points or score more. To put it simply, we need to get better. Northwestern is a top-notch program, and we had them on the ropes, but we didn’t seal the deal.”

“I thought we wrestled really well and we definitely showed we are a tough and well-conditioned team,” Krop said. “We put ourselves in a position to beat a good Big Ten team in Northwestern, we just failed to capitalize in certain situations that ended up costing us matches.”

The Tigers now return back to New Jersey for their first two home matches on Friday, where they hope to use the loss to Northwestern as fuel to keep working.

“We’re all pretty stoked for our first home matches next Friday, and we’ll use this loss to motivate us through the week,” Harner said. “We’re going to grind through the week, get better and put on a show this Friday in Dillon."

Match time is set for 5 p.m. against Sacred Heart and 7 p.m. against Binghamton, both in Dillon Gymnasium.