Coming off a monumental season last year, the Princeton wrestling team set high expectations for its performance this season.
Freshman standout Matthew Kolodzik became the second Midlands Tournament finalist ever for the Princeton wrestling program, improving on his fifth-place performance from last year, when he wrestled as an unattached competitor while deferring admission to the University. This was the biggest Midlands tournament yet, and the talented but young Tigers found themselves wrestling with some of the nation’s best programs and most decorated competitors.
After an impressive trouncing of Maryland and Buffalo at the Madison Square Garden Grapple in the Garden, the 25th-ranked Tigers headed to Lincoln this weekend for another pre-season test as they took part in the Nebraska Duels, hosted by the University of Nebraska.
Though the wrestling season is barely a couple of weeks in, the Tigers have already become quite the local celebrities.
Ever since that first fateful 1869 football game played, Princeton and Rutgers University, the flagship state university of New Jersey, have traveled down quite different paths.
What a season it has been for the Princeton Tigers men’s wrestling team. This year, the Tigers have established themselves as a strong wrestling program to be respected and feared.
In 1978, a dominant Princeton men’s wrestling team captured the EIWA title.
In the 2012-2013 season, the Princeton men’s wrestling team went 0-5 in Ivy League play. For the last two years they have steadily improved but have finished each year with a 3-2 record. This year, the men’s wrestling team finally broke the dam, reaching the Ivy League Championship round in Dillon gym for the first time in three decades against perennial conference champion Cornell on Saturday.
Coming off an exciting victory over longtime rival Penn, the Tigers surged through the first two matches of Ivy League play, winning key matchups against the Harvard and Brown wrestling teams.
The Princeton men’s wrestling team faced a busy intersession weekend as they competed in three meets over two days. On Saturday, the Tigers, coming off a narrow defeat to Binghamton University, hosted Franklin and Marshall and Ivy League rival Penn.
This past Friday, the men of Princeton wrestling played host to Navy, a team against whom the Tigers have found little success in decades past.
The wrestling team kicked off its dual meet scheduleon Sundayin New York City, which is where the Tigers hope to finish their season in March at the 2016 NCAA Championships.
In its second tournament of the season and final tournament before heading to New York City this weekend, the wrestling team took home major hardware en route to its team victory at the Navy Classic on Saturday.
Back in the fall, Chris Ayres and his coaching staff established the mantra of “In the Hunt” for the 2014-15 wrestling season.
As a walk-on on the wrestling team at Lehigh University 20 years ago, Chris Ayres quickly turned heads.
In its final weekend of dual competition, the wrestling team (9-9, 6-7 Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) faced stiff competition from opponents both in and out of the conference.
Going into the weekend riding a three-match win streak, which included a home rout of Ivy rivals Harvard and Brown last weekend, the wrestling team (9-6, 6-5 Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) split a pair of road matches this weekend.
Just a month away from postseason competition, the wrestling team (8-5 overall, 2-1 Ivy League) started off the month of February on a hot streak, as the Tigers took out Ivy opponents Harvard and Brownon Saturday.
The wrestling team split a pair of conference matches in its first home outing of the New Year, as the Tigers (5-4, 2-3 Eastern Intercollegiate Western Association) defeated Sacred Heart University and fell short in its comeback against Hofstra University on Friday evening. The Tigers started off against Sacred Heart at 174 pounds, where junior Judd Ziegler got things going with a strong 8-4 decision to put Princeton on the board first.
The wrestling team (4-3, 1-2 Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) kept busy over winter break, competing out of state on three separate occasions as a prelude to the heart of its conference schedule. After falling to Binghamton at home on Dec.
