Wrestling: Grapplers reach top of Ivy League

In what is shaping up to be one of Princeton’s most promising seasons in years, the men’s wrestling team completed a perfect weekend with a victory over Sacred Heart last Sunday. This marks the first time the team has scored four consecutive victories over Division I schools in over two decades, and also places it among the winningest squads within the Ivy League that Princeton has seen in that period.

The team took down both Harvard and Brown within a five-hour stretch last Saturday to equal its highest Ivy League win total in nearly two decades. The team’s consecutive victories placed it on par with the 2000-01 squad, Princeton’s only winning team in the last 20 years, and the Tigers look prepared to carry their streak through the rest of the season.

Despite some tough losses at the end of January, the Tigers are now undefeated in the Ivy League and are coming off a perfect weekend. The weekend started at Boston University on Friday, where freshman Garrett Frey opened the meet with his 20th victory of the season on a 15-6 major decision. BU took two quick wins, but sophomore Daniel Kolodzik’s pin at 149 pounds stopped any momentum.

Senior 157-pounder Danny Scotton and sophomore 165-pounder Andy Lowy scored two decisions for the Tigers, and junior 174-pounder Travis Erdman’s pin, along with a forfeit victory for sophomore 184-pounder Kurt Brendel, gave the Tigers the win. Freshman 197-pounder Charles Fox and freshman heavyweight Bobby Grogan lost two tough decisions to bring the final score to 28-12.

After the Brown match, he wrestlers next took on Harvard last Saturday afternoon in Cambridge, Mass. Frey once again opened the meet with a win, and his pin combined with sophomore 133-pounder Tony Comunale’s and freshman 141-pounder Luis Ramos’ forfeit victory to give the Tigers an early 18-0 lead in the meet.

Kolodzik scored a major decision at 149 pounds to bring the lead to 22-0 before Harvard finally got on the board. The top Crimson wrestler, J.P. O’Connor, won a 14-0 decision over Scotton to give the Crimson four points, but even that was a relative success against the nation’s top-ranked wrestler at 157 pounds.

Senior Mike Alvarez scored another major decision in the 165-pound weight class, and Erdman’s pin in one minute, 40 seconds clinched the meet for the Princeton team.

Brendel lost a decision to Louis Caputo, the NCAA’s sixth-ranked wrestler, another solid performance for the Tigers given the opponent’s stature. The meet ended with Fox’ 9-2 decision in the 197-pound class and Grogan’s close loss in the heavyweight division, leaving the final score 35-10.

The matchup against Brown did not start nearly as well, with a loss in the heavyweight decision and two victorious decisions that gave the Tigers a small early lead. Ramos took one of the more difficult matches of the day against a former state champion from Pennsylvania but held on for a victory.

Kolodzik followed Ramos with a comeback win against Brown’s Phillip Marano, and Scotton won a thrilling victory in the second sudden-death overtime to push the score to 15-3.

Lowy was pinned in the 165-pound division, but his loss was quickly avenged by Erdman, who came back from a 6-1 deficit by taking down and pinning his opponent with just 40 seconds left.

The Tigers were guaranteed at least a tie, but the last two fighters for Princeton managed not to falter, allowing the Bears to score just six points and giving the Tigers a 21-15 victory.

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The Princeton men ended the weekend on an even higher note, defeating Sacred Heart in a dominant 33-9 performance, an especially sweet finish to the weekend for the seniors, who have suffered through multiple losing seasons before this one.

Currently tied for first in the Ancient Eight with Penn, the Tigers will attempt to take the lead on Saturday when they face Cornell and Columbia in the hope of posting their first winning record in the Ivy League in nine years.