Wrestling splits weekend contests

As the Penn match finished, so did Princeton's chances for an Ivy League wrestling championship.

Upset by the loss, the Tigers quickly realized that this is only the middle of their season, and with a chance at third place in the Ivy League, the team went back to business as usual.

Unleashing their aggression from the Penn match, the Tigers (12-8 overall, 2-2 Ivy League) invaded the Columbia wrestling room and quickly demolished the Lions, 29-11.

Once again, senior Ryan Bonfiglio and sophomores Greg Parker and Joe Clarke led the Tigers' victory, going undefeated on the day. These three grapplers lead the team in wins.

Beginning with the 184 lbs. match, senior Brian Foran set the mood for the Tigers. Foran was originally expected to wrestle at 174 through the season. In his first Ivy League match of the year, Foran might have had the most important match of the day. In a close fight, Foran edged out Columbia's Jeff Anderson, 5-2.

With momentum going into the next match, senior Chris McLaughlin surged out of his recent slump and exploded on his opponent, Columbia's T.J. Francisco, winning the match, 12-8. With a high scoring match, the two wrestlers attempted ludicrous moves, but McLaughlin intelligently lulled Francisco until the young wrestler naturally got anxious, and Francisco never had a chance after he fell into McLaughlin's trap.

With the Tigers down by a few points, the match turned around. Not about to lose a third Ivy League match in a row, Clarke took it upon himself to lift his team out of its rut.

Clarke convincingly pinned his opponent, John Valladares, at three minutes, 33 seconds into the match. In a sport where momentum is everything, the electrifying pin jump-started a team that was close to losing its energy.

"For this team to excel this year and next year, we need every guy to be capable of winning these close matches," head coach Michael New said. "Good teams win the close matches."

Putting the meet away for good, Bonfiglio threw around the Columbia 165 lbs. wrestler, winning the match 16-10. Wrestling at possibly the toughest weight in the league, Bonfiglio has had tremendous success this season. He is starting to find his rhythm, and hopefully for Bonfiglio, he will get a strong late season surge.

With little surprise, Parker once again demolished his opponent. This time the victim was Columbia's Chris Felicetta. Putting an exclamation mark on the day, Parker routed the Lion, beating him 16-1. With such a lopsided victory, the referee stopped the bout at 6:19 into the match.

Saturday the Tigers hosted New Jersey rival Rutgers. Rutgers had a strong match and defeated the Tigers 26-10, but several wrestlers had great days. Junior Juan Venturi won his match, 20-5, and Clarke, once again, had no trouble with his competition.

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With their second Ivy League victory in hand, the Tigers had already exceeded the win record for several years, as they had not won an Ivy League wrestling meet in the previous six years. At 2-2, the Tigers are out of the race for first place, but Princeton still has a chance at third. The Tigers will face Cornell Saturday. While Cornell will be a strong team, the Tigers match up very well with the Big Red.

Also, the team is finally becoming healthy, and the Tigers will need everyone's best to defeat Cornell.

Coach New was very pleased with his team's performance. "The guys rebounded really well. It would have made sense for them to be a little flat after the Penn match, but everyone was full of energy. The guys seemed to be more aggressive and confident against Columbia than they did at Penn. Maybe it was because they had nothing to lose, but I think they just started to relax."