Facing stiff competition in its season-opening tournament on Saturday, the wrestling team finished eighth out of nine schools and far behind No. 19 the University of Oklahoma. The team did see strong individual efforts across the board and recorded its highest-ever point total in the Brockport-Oklahoma Gold Classic.
The team racked up 63.5 points, 22 points more than its total at last year's invitational at Brockport, N.Y. Five wrestlers out of the 10 weight classes placed individually, and co-captain Jeff Schell '08 led the way with a second place finish. Despite these improvements and accomplishments, the coaches and the wrestlers still see a lot of room for improvement in the coming season.
"It was our first real tournament of the season, and we expected errors," Schell said. "It is much better to see the errors early and have the coaches help us to analyze and correct them. But I saw a lot of good wrestling from the team. A lot of the guys did not give up and eventually came up from behind."
In his first-round match at the 133-pound weight class, Schell breezed past his opponent, 14-2, then took down Kent State University's Clayton Stark by a score of 7-3. But Schell had closer matches as he advanced through the bracket. Schell faced William Simpson of the United States Military Academy in the semifinal round and scraped by his opponent 3-2 to reach the final. In the final, facing the nation's 12th seed, Dan Mitcheff of Kent State, Schell lost by a margin of 2-1.
Schell was pleased with his performance but still thought he could have wrestled better.
"As a senior and a captain, I expect myself to be a high-performance leader - to lead by example," Schell said. "As far as this weekend goes, I had a lot of close matches. I think I wrestled really well, but I still made a few errors. I finished second but I really wanted to win the tournament."
Following Schell's lead, four other Bears placed individually. At 165, Chris Musser '09 posted the second highest finish on the team at fourth place. Musser lost his first match narrowly to Rob Huffman from Bloomsburg University but rebounded to win all his subsequent consolation matches, before falling to Liberty's University Chad Porter by one point in the third-place match to take fourth place.
Head Coach Dave Amato praised Musser's performance this weekend.
"Musser did a great job. He moved up a weight class (from 175 pounds) from last year but wrestled really well," Amato said.
Three other Bears placed fifth. At 125, Greg Einfrank '10 won three straight matches before losing in the semifinals. He won the fifth-place match against Kevin Smith from Buffalo University with a major decision, 11-3. In the 149-pound weight class, Mark Bloom '09 lost to Scott Clymer from Liberty 6-4 in the second round after receiving a bye. But Bloom wrestled his way up the consolation bracket and eventually defeated Clymer in the fifth-place match with a 9-7 decision.
Bloom was injured early in his freshman year and consequently missed the remainder of his freshman year, as well as his sophomore year. In his first tournament back, Bloom equaled the number of matches previously wrestled in his entire college career.
"I was a bit nervous going in, but I felt better the more I wrestled. It was exciting for me because the tournament was really close to my hometown and I had my family there cheering for me," Bloom said.
At 157, Lenny Marandino '09 was the victim of a bad draw and lost 10-4 to Chad Terry from Oklahoma, who eventually took first place in the weight class. In the consolation bracket, Marandino had a three-match winning streak before losing the third-place match. He defeated Army's Chris Grill 9-6 to take fifth.
Amato was pleased with these wrestlers' performances this weekend, but thought the team gave only an average performance on the whole.
"We were up from last year, but some of the guys lacked intensity," Amato said. "They were a bit too cautious and conservative."
The team will compete in its next tournament, the Keystone Classic, Sunday in Philadelphia. It will be the first time this season that Brown will face Ivy League opponents, when they square off with Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.
