Last Saturday, Bruno’s wrestling team fell in duels to No. 22 Cornell and the unranked Binghamton. In the match against Cornell, the Bears secured two thrilling non-forfeit wins, including one against a nationally ranked wrestler. The team finished the day with a nail-biting 20-21 loss to Binghamton — just barely falling short on making up for bonus points Binghamton scored early on.
Even though Bruno went into the duel as underdogs against Cornell, Brown’s wrestlers offered fierce resistance in several bouts. Head Coach Jordan Leen told The Herald that the team’s comparatively smaller roster size often poses a challenge in close matchups.
Looking at individual scores, “where our starters are in and they’re competing, they’re competing really well,” Leen told The Herald. But without enough skilled alternates in each weight class, missing starters posed compounding issues up and down Saturday’s lineup.
Connor O’Donnell ’28, who normally wrestles at 165 pounds, stepped up and competed two weight classes above at 184 pounds against both Cornell and Binghamton. “We appreciate a guy being ready to go” and compete even in higher weight classes, Leen said.
Despite being outmatched as a team, Bruno put up individual performances that electrified the crowd in Ithaca. No. 32 Alex Semenenko, who competes at 285 pounds, won a thrilling overtime upset in front of hostile bleachers against Cornell’s No. 29 Ashton Davis. After neither player scored during the bout, Semenenko beat Davis in overtime based on ride time, thanks to a well-timed suplex and a mat return.
For Semenenko, the match was vindicating given that he “lost to this guy two times last year.”
“The fans fed into the energy,” Semenenko told The Herald. “It was just good getting a win on the road in front of the away fans.”
In the Bears’ other non-forfeit win against Big Red, Max Norman ’29 secured a pin in the third period against Cornell’s Louie Cericho after being down 0 to 3 points in the first period. Norman secured a front headlock from an overhook and underhook before chin whipping Cericho for the pin.
At Binghamton, Bruno battled through intense back and forth. They answered an early 0-6 trail when Khimari Manns ’29 secured the technical fall against Binghamton’s Ryan Hartung and Austin McBurney ’26 defeated opponent Caleb Sweet in a major decision.
Norman also found his way to a convincing win against Binghamton, securing a major decision against opponent Jordan Brown. Norman, like Manns, is a promising first-year standout on the team.
In the final two bouts of the Binghamton duel, No. 19 Andrew Reall ’28 and Semenenko found major decision and decision wins respectively. Still, Bruno could not make up enough points to surpass Binghamton, who clinched five total bouts during the duel.
Reall’s major decision victory kept Brown in contention for the win. Reall pressured and ground down Binghamton’s Mikey Squires for two periods before scoring 11 points.
“By the time I got to the third period, I was still feeling good, and the guy was really tired, and I put up 11 points.” Reall told The Herald.
For the Bears to prevail against Binghamton, Semenenko would have needed to secure the pin or technical fall against Binghamton’s Trent Sibble during their final match. But Sibble had other plans, determinedly avoiding the pin in favor of allowing Semenenko to win in a decision instead.
“When the opposing team knows that my job is to get a pin … their whole game plan is just to not get pinned,” Semenenko told The Herald. “They’re willing to give up a loss.”
The Bears are looking to this coming weekend’s home matchups against Penn on Saturday and Princeton on Sunday.
“We look forward to those individual matchups and individual opportunities to knock off nationally ranked guys,” Leen said.
Chiupong Huang is a senior staff writer covering sports.
