Jan. 27, 2008

No. 21 Maryland Improves ACC Winning Streak To Nine With Two Wins Saturday

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The No. 21 Maryland wrestling team continued its winning ways in the Atlantic Coast Conference as the Terrapins defeated NC State and Duke on January 26 at Comcast Pavilion. Maryland beat the Wolfpack, the 2007 ACC Champions, 27-12, before dominating Duke, 33-5. Five Terps earned a pair of victories in the two duals.

Maryland has now won nine-straight ACC dual meets which is something that has not happened since 1974. The Terps are also 13-1 over the last three seasons within the conference.

Sophomore Brendan Byrne was the first of five Terps to win two matches on the day. He started off by pinning NC State's Taylor Cummings, the defending ACC champion at 125 pounds, in the first period. Byrne then went on to beat Kellan McKeon of Duke, 5-4, in his second match.

Sophomore Steven Bell picked up two more wins and improved his record to 20-7 at 133 pounds. It took two tiebreakers against Darius Little of NC State, but Bell came away with a 4-2 win. The wrestlers were locked up at 1-1 after three periods and neither could score a takedown in the one minute overtime. Bell started down in the first tiebreaker and escaped to take a 2-1 lead, but Little did the same in the second, recording his escape with 19 seconds left. Bell was able to score again before time ran out though, getting the winning takedown with just five seconds remaining. Bell then defeated Duke's Bryan Gibson, 6-4.

Freshman Brian Letters has been on a roll as of late having now won his last five matches at 157 pounds. He picked up a pair of decisions on the day as he beat Colton Palmer, 8-3, and Voris Tejada of Duke in a tight one, 2-1.

Sophomores Mike Letts and Hudson Taylor both went 2-0 on the day as well. The two handled their opponents form NC State and proved to be too much, forcing both wrestlers to stop their matches due to injuries. Against Duke, they both earned major decisions as Letts beat Ben Wales, 16-4, and Taylor got the best of Dan Tulley, 11-1.

Tar Heels Bounce Back With Win Over Hokies

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Junior Keegan Mueller continued his dominating stretch with a major decision at 165 pounds to open the match, and senior Drew Forshey put North Carolina in front to stay with a pin at 125 in the Tar Heels' 22-12 win over Virginia Tech at Cassell Coliseum. UNC evened its Atlantic Coast Conference mark at 2-2 and improved to 6-4 overall with the victory. With the loss, the Hokies dropped to 4-5 and 0-2 in the league.

The match started at 165 with the 12th-ranked Mueller recording a 10-0 shutout of Matt Epperly for his fifth straight win by major decision or technical fall. He has outscored his last five opponents by a 64-2 margin to move his record to 20-3, 10-0 in duals and 4-0 in the ACC.

The Hokies then ran off three straight wins at 174, 184 and 197 to grab a 9-4 lead before 18th-ranked heavyweight Justin Dobies got Carolina back on the board with a 4-1 decision over David Marone for his eighth straight win and a 21-5 overall record. Like Mueller, Dobies is unbeaten in dual and ACC action.

With the Tar Heels trailing 9-7, Forshey's pin of Steve Armour at 4:13 put Carolina in front for good with a 13-9 lead. Decisions by sophomore Danny Lopes at 133 (2-0 over Nick Murray) and redshirt freshman Nick Stabile at 141 (3-0 over Chris Diaz) extended the Tar Heels' advantage to 19-9.

Forshey moved to 13-7 overall and 4-2 in dual action with his third pin of the year. Lopes is now 11-10 on the year, while Stabile is 18-4 and 8-2 in duals.

Virginia Tech cut the lead to 19-12 with a win at 149, but redshirt freshman Thomas Scotton scored an 8-2 decision over Andre Johnson at 157 for the final 10-point margin. Scotton's win was his second of the weekend and moved his record to 14-4 and 7-0 in duals.

Terps, Midshipmen Upend NC State

NC State's wrestling team took a road swing through the state of Maryland on Saturday, and dropped dual matches at Maryland and Navy. The Wolfpack lost 27-12 to the Terrapins in an Atlantic Coast Conference match, then fell 21-15 to the Midshipmen.

Maryland won six of 10 matches, but took one match by pin and two others by injury default to account for the final 15-point margin of victory. NC State got victories from three of its four returning ACC champions. Seventh-ranked Joe Caramanica took a 12-8 decision over Jon Kohler at 141, and 10th-ranked Darrion Caldwell won a 7-5 decision over Eric Medina, Maryland's impressive freshman at 149. Ryan Goodman (14-4), ranked No. 20 at 184, defeated 17th-ranked Josh Haines 4-1. Goodman's decision extended his winning streak to seven matches. The Wolfpack also got a 5-2 win from freshman heavyweight Bobby Isola (11-10) over Patrick Gilmore.

Taylor Cummings, NC State's fourth returning conference champion, was pinned at the 2:22 mark by Brendan Byrne in the 125-pound match. The Terps also got big points when ninth-ranked Mike Letts and seventh-ranked Hudson Taylor won their matches by injury default at 174 and 197 pounds, respectively.

At Navy, the Wolfpack and Midshipmen split the 10 bouts right down the middle, but Navy picked up extra points thanks to a pin and a forfeit. Navy jumped to a 12-0 lead after the first three bouts, but the Wolfpack won the next four matches to tie the team score at 12-12. Taylor Cummings improved to 18-9 with a 6-1 decision over Allen Stein at 125 pounds, and Darius Little won a narrow and somewhat controversial 6-5 decision over Matt Pagan at 133. The third period in that bout was wrestled over after it was discovered that the officials inadvertently gave the choice to start the third period to Pagan by mistake.

Caramanica followed with a 7-0 decision over Glenn Shober at 141 to improve to 23-4, and Caldwell won 9-4 over Bryce Saddoris at 149 to lift his record for the season to 24-3. The two teams split the next two matches to make it 15-15 heading into the final bout of the night, but Navy's Matt Stolpinski, ranked No. 8 nationally, won by forfeit to give Navy its six-point margin of victory.

Hokies fall to Tar Heels, 22-12

BLACKSBURG - The Virginia Tech wrestling squad dropped a 22-12 ACC decision to the University of North Carolina Saturday afternoon at Cassell Coliseum. With the win, the Tar Heels improve to 6-4 overall, 2-2 in the league while the Hokies fall to 4-5, 0-2 in the ACC.

Things got started at 165 pounds where UNC's Keegan Mueller continued his hot wrestling of late, blanking Tech's Matt Epperly, 10-0, for a major decision. Mueller, ranked 12th in the country, has now outscored his last five opponents 64-2, picking up four major decisions and a technical fall in that span.

Tech got on the board at 174 pounds when 20th-ranked Eric Decker picked up a 3-1 decision over Kyle Kiss. He used a second-period takedown and held on late for the win. At 184 pounds, freshman Tommy Spellman picked up an exciting 3-1 victory over Nick Tenpenny in sudden victory. Both men recorded escapes in their period, but Spellman converted a shot into a takedown in the first overtime to win. Kevin O'Connor made it three wins in a row for the home team when he downed Dennis Drury, 7-5, at 197 pounds. O'Connor recorded two first-period takedowns and got one more in the third and a point for riding time to pick up the win.

At heavyweight, freshman David Marone put up a fight with 18th-ranked Justin Dobies, but fell 4-1. The two were tied at 1-1 in the third before Marone was given a controversial technical violation for fleeing the mat. Dobies later added a takedown for the win.

After the intermission, the Tar Heels went on a roll to ice the match. At 125 pounds, senior Drew Forshey pinned Tech's Steve Armor at the 4:13 mark and Danny Lopes added a 2-0 shutout over Tech's Nick Murray. At 141 pounds, Nick Stabile rode Tech's Chris Diaz the entire second and third periods for 4:00 of riding time en route to the 3-0 win.

The Hokies picked up the final win in exciting fashion at 149 pounds when Matt Rosen defeated Vincent Ramirez in overtime. Ramirez led 3-1 heading into the third stanza. Rosen escaped and picked up a takedown to tie it up, but Ramirez reversed him to take a two-point lead. With less than 30 seconds left, Rosen reversed Ramirez, but gave up the escape late to send it to overtime. There, Rosen picked up the takedown to pick up the win, 8-6.

Blue Devils Fall To No. 21 Maryland On The Road, 33-5

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Duke knew it would face a stiff test when it traveled to No. 21 Maryland on Saturday afternoon. It proved to be just as tough of a dual meet as they imagined as the Terrapins defeated the Blue Devils 33-5 at Comcast Pavilion in College Park, Md.

The contest marked the fourth of eight consecutive duals on the road for Duke. The Blue Devils are 2-2 on the road swing so far with a 6-7 overall record this season and a 0-3 mark in the ACC. Maryland improved to 11-3 this year and is 3-0 at the top of the ACC.

Duke lost five of the first six matches by a total of seven points. By that point, the Blue Devils were down an insurmountable 21-0.