Wrestling: Frey making immediate impact

When you see Garrett Frey walking through Frist Campus Center, you might not see him as the most imposing figure. At just more than five feet, Frey doesn’t look like your typical varsity athlete. But the freshman 125-pounder has proven to be as ferocious a wrestler as Princeton has had in recent years.

Frey burst onto the scene Nov. 15 at the Binghamton Open. He won his first college tournament, reached the finals of the second and won two of his first three matches in dual meets.

Frey has been the star of an overall extraordinary recruiting class. A Pittsburgh native, Frey wrestled at wrestling powerhouse Blair Academy for four years in Blairstown, N.J. Princeton head coach Chris Ayres did a post-graduate year at Blair, making the connection logical.

“I had known of him for a long time, and he was a tough kid,” Ayres said. “He was a really good student, and that’s the first thing we always look for.”

Frey said that several factors led him to choose Princeton over other schools.

“I chose to come to Princeton because this is where I felt most comfortable,” Frey said. “Not only Coach Ayres, but our entire coaching staff is filled with young guys who are a lot of fun to be around but, at the same time, they really want to win.”

Frey also noted that Ayres influenced his decision to matriculate at Princeton.

“Yes, Coach Ayres and I do share the same alma mater, and I guess you could say the Blair background helped to spark my interest in Princeton and influenced my decision a bit,” Frey said. “I’ve never been happier than I have been with my decision to continue my wrestling career as a Tiger.”

Frey brought the complete package to the table, with good grades, strength of character and a brilliant wrestling resume. Frey finished his career at Blair with a 124-24 record and three top-three finishes at the national prep championships.

“It comes down to a lot of things for us,” Ayres said. “Grades and wrestling are the first. Then we try to get kids with good character. I got to know him and his family, and I knew his brother, who went to Cornell, well. It just worked out perfectly.”

As a high schooler, Frey exhibited a lot of upside. The appeal of guiding a wrestler to his potential was quite appealing to Ayres.

“I really felt like his best days were ahead of him,” Ayres said.

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So far, this has proven to be the case.

At the Binghamton Open, Frey made his presence known. He pinned his first opponent, Ryan Nevgebauer of the Stevens Institute of Technology, before trouncing Tim Trivisonno of Rider, 12-1. He then pinned Charlie Frankel of Delaware Valley.

His next match was against Tyler Bisacha of Cornell. Cornell is a perennial top-three team, but Frey was unfazed. The freshman pulled off an 11-9 victory and proceeded to the finals. There, he handily defeated Greg Einfrank of Brown, 9-4, for the championship.

“At Binghamton, he had a really, really good performance,” Ayres said. “No one was even close to him.”

The next weekend at the Keystone Open at Penn’s Palestra, Frey picked up where he left off. Seeded second, he opened with major decision victories over Glenn Donatelli of American and Justin Branham of Liberty. He then defeated Einfrank for the second time in as many weeks by an 11-9 score. He lost the final to Jasen Borshoff of American, 5-3.

Last weekend, Frey went 1-1 with a forfeit victory over Franklin & Marshall. He defeated Jonathan Pope of Virginia Military Institute, 8-5, before falling to two-time New Jersey high school state champion Vincent Dellafave of Rutgers by a 5-3 score.

The transition from high school to collegiate wrestling is enormous, yet Frey has made it smoothly so far.

His desire to succeed, coupled with his diligence, have led to his success.

“I had the advantage of being part of one of the toughest high school wrestling programs, which has undoubtedly contributed to my success early on,” Frey said. “Also, I fell short of my goals in high school, and I think that has really motivated me to strive to achieve my goals in college.”

“One of two things generally happen with kids when they come to college,” Ayres added. “One is they know it’s going to be hard, they’re really nervous, and they don’t think they can be good right away. That’s one type. The other type is the kid who thinks he’s really good, and then he takes some beatings.”

Frey has taken the good from both.

“Garrett is an interesting combo,” Ayres said. “He thought he should be really good right away, but he always knew that he had a lot of room for improvement. When you get that type of kid, they make huge improvements across a short period of time. There’s a major sense of urgency.”

Frey’s mental fortitude has also helped him conquer his opponents in a sport that is at least as mentally challenging as it is physically.

“He’s pretty darn mentally tough,” Ayres said. “He comes in and trains a lot. He just wants to be good. You couldn’t ask for anything more. We can’t give him enough stuff to do. He just keeps wanting more.”

Frey’s biggest weakness so far has been inconsistency. While he performed sensationally in his first tournament, his performances since then haven’t been quite up to par.

“Since [Binghamton], the fire wasn’t exactly there in every match,” Ayres said. “If he had that fire and excitement, he would’ve had better performances the last two weekends. This is not to say that he performed poorly, but I wouldn’t say he had a peak performance.”

It certainly says something if a second-place finish, a victory and a tight loss to a two-time state champion aren’t a peak performance for a freshman.

There’s no doubt that Frey knows what he needs to focus on to improve.

“I think I need to continue to go out at the beginning of every match excited to see what I can do and with the attitude of making my opponent want to give up,” Frey said. “Coach Ayres and I talked about this today, and we both came to the conclusion that every match I need to wrestle like I have something to prove.

“It is a lot of fun going out there and beating on the other guy until he just doesn’t want to wrestle anymore,” Frey added. “If I can continue to improve that attitude about wrestling and competing, I feel confident that I will be able to take things to the next level.”

As for goals, Frey has made it crystal clear what he is aiming for.

“He wants to win a national title,” Ayres said. “My job as a coach is to help individuals reach their dreams. He’s got the talent to win one. He knows it, and we know it, but he’s got things to improve on.”