Wrestling: Kolodzik, Cash lead grapplers to upset at No. 23 Crimson

The Tigers had two goals this year — to finish second in the Ivy League, behind powerhouse No. 4 Cornell, and to beat Penn — and in doing so demand that the Princeton wrestling program be taken seriously. But on Friday night, after the loss to Brown, Princeton’s odds to finish second in the league were slim. But Saturday, the Tigers got some help from Harvard, who beat Penn before falling to Princeton. If Princeton can take down Columbia next week, they’ll have a chance to both beat Penn and take second in the Ivy League, all in one fell swoop on Feb. 18. Not only does the win over Harvard give Princeton control over their own destiny, it also gives the Tigers confidence heading into a must-win stretch of the season.

“The fact that we beat Harvard shows that we’re right there and can beat Penn,” a fired up Adam Krop said, a sophomore who is ranked No. 14 in the nation at 141 pounds.

With two pins and a decision, Krop extended his unbeaten streak to 10 straight matches this weekend. If Krop continues to wrestle how he has, he will be a lock to make the NCAA tournament and will have a chance to become an All-American. But the Tigers need Krop to focus on his matchup against Penn’s Zack Kemmerer, who is ranked No. 13, if Princeton wants to knock off the Quakers in two weeks.

Interestingly enough, the Tigers split matches with both Brown and BU on Friday, meaning each team won five individual matchups. Bonus points coming from pins, technical falls and major decisions ended up determining the champion.

As senior captain Daniel Kolodzik said, “Friday kind of didn’t go our way. We lost two matches on bonus points, and dropping one to Brown was kind of a bummer because we really thought we could go out there and take it to them.”

Against Brown, Princeton again showed their strength in the middleweights, winning four straight matches at 133, 141, 149 and 157 pounds to open up a commanding 17-4 lead on the Bears. But as has become a trend this season, the Tigers struggled in the upperweights, giving up three straight pins at 165, 174 and 184 pounds en route to a 28-21 loss.

After the loss to Brown, the Tigers heard it from their coach, Chris Ayres.

“Ayres is usually a pretty chill guy, soft-spoken, smiles a lot, but we wrestled pretty poorly against Brown, and he let us know it. That got us fired up!” said Kolodzik, who is ranked No. 19 nationally and won all three of his matches this weekend.

In anticipation for the match against BU, Coach Ayres made some changes to his lineup, such as inserting sophomore Ryan Callahan into the lineup at 174 pounds — Callahan had previously been out with an MCL injury — and shifting senior Andy Lowy, sophomore Dan Santoro and senior Kurt Brendel up one weight class. The move ended up paying off for Princeton. Callahan won his first match of the year, and Lowy won on a technical fall at 184 pounds — an impressive feat considering he had weighed in at 174 pounds just that morning. The move wasn’t enough, however, to overcome the Terriers’ two pins and a technical fall of their own, as Princeton fell to BU 22-21.

On Saturday against Harvard, despite Friday’s results, Princeton came through with one of their best victories in years.

“We had three weeks off leading up to this weekend during finals, so I think Friday was mostly just getting the kinks out and then we really went after it [against Harvard].”

With all kinks gone, it seemed that each Tiger wrestler was unstoppable. It all started with freshman 125-pounder Ryan Cash, who won his first collegiate match against Harvard’s Max Mejia. Then after Krop won his match, fellow sophomore Zach Bintliff pinned his opponent to complete a perfect 3-0 weekend and extend Princeton’s lead to 12-4. Harvard seemed to be banking on a pin from their star, No. 4 Walter Peppelman, who they sent into the ring to wrestle Kolodzik at 157 pounds.

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“[Kolodzik] literally trained for a whole month to beat this kid,” Krop said after the match.

“And he pounded him,” Cash said, finishing Krop’s sentence.

Pound him, Kolodzik did, winning by a score of 9-1 — a major decision. Kolodzik’s win opened up the Tigers’ lead to 16-4. After senior Kurt Brendel recorded a pin for Princeton at 197 pounds, sealing the victory, the Tigers could celebrate and look beyond their loss to Brown.

“If we beat Columbia and we beat Penn, Brown doesn’t matter,” said Cash. And the rest of the Tiger squad is looking at the past weekend the same way: with optimism. They’ll need to remain optimistic as the season comes to a close over the next two weeks.

This Friday, the Tigers hope to take the next step toward history as they host Columbia at 7:00 p.m. inside historic Dillon Gymnasium.