March 8, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

Complete Release in PDF Format

LANCASTER, Pa.-The Navy wrestling team is in fifth place after the first day of the EIWA Wrestling Championship with 35 points. The Mids are just 2.5 points behind fourth place American and 6.5 points behind third place Army. Cornell is in first place with 68.5 points, while Penn is in second with 56.5 points. The Mids still have eight wrestlers left in the tournament, the fourth most of any school. Cornell and Penn each have 10 wrestlers remaining, while Army has nine.

"We weren't able to upset anybody today and if you want to win and compete on this level you have to pull some upsets," said Navy head coach Bruce Burnett. "For the most part the guys beat who they were supposed to beat and lost to who they were supposed to lose too. We still have eight guys alive in the tournament so we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

Navy has four wrestlers still alive in the winners bracket, including defending EIWA champions Matt Stolpinksi at 174 and Ed Prendergast at heavyweight.

Stolpinski, the #2 seed behind Steve Anceravage of Cornell, picked up two wins on Saturday defeating Travis Creagen of Columbia (17-0, 6:19) and #7 seed Shane Mallory of East Stroudsburg (13-1). Stolpinski will wrestle #6 seed Shane Riccio of Bucknell tomorrow morning. Riccio advanced to face Stolpinksi after upsetting #3 seed Justin Herbert of Franklin & Marshall. The #4 seed at 174, Alex Caruso of Lehigh, was also upset, losing to the #5 seed Scott Griffin of Penn in a fall at 6:51.

Prendergast, the #1 seed, should be fresh for tomorrow as he wrestled just once on Saturday, handling Kareem Mahmoud of Rutgers, 6-3. Prendergast will take on the #4 seed Nathan Thobaben of Army in his first match.

The other two Mids still alive in the winners bracket is Joe Baker at 133 pounds and Spencer Manley at 157 pounds. Baker came in as the #4 seed and defeated Jeffrey Schell of Brown, 6-4. He will face the #1 seed Mike Grey of Cornell in his first match tomorrow. Manley, the #3 seed, defeated Anthony Bongarzone, 10-3, and the #6 seed Matthew Dunn of Columbia, 10-5. Manley will face the #2 seed, David Nakasone of Lehigh in his first match.

Navy still has four wrestlers alive in the consolation bracket as well, including #4 seed Bryce Saddoris at 149 pounds. Saddoris defeated Albert Gianforti of Franklin & Marshall, 6-2, before falling to the #5 seed Daniel Meagher of Cornell, 6-2. Saddoris came back in the consolation bracket to dominate Jesse Dunn of East Stroudsburg, 18-4. Saddoris will wrestle Casey Thome of Army tomorrow in his first match.

Justin Jacobs, the #5 seed at 165 pounds, defeated Alejandro Enriquez of Princeton, 10-0, before losing by fall to Andrew Rendos of Bucknell (3:48). Jacobs came back in the consolation bracket and defeated Andrew Smith of Franklin & Marshall, 8-0. Jacobs will wrestle Christopher Grill of Army tomorrow in his first match of the day.

Kenneth Caldwell, the #5 seed at 184 pounds, wrestled on Saturday with a temperature of 102 degrees. Caldwell lost to the #4 seed, Matthew Gevelinger of Brown, 10-3, before coming back to beat Daniel Canfield of Franklin & Marshall, 3-1. Caldwell will face Manuel Schubert of Lehigh tomorrow.

Matthew Parson was seeded #8 at 197 pounds and won his first match, 10-4 over William Colgan of Harvard, before falling to defending NCAA champion Joshua Glenn of American, 15-2. Parsons came back in the consolation bracket to defeat Alex Iacocca of Lehigh, 8-4. His first match tomorrow will be against Richard Starts of Army.

Wrestling starts tomorrow morning on the campus of Franklin & Marshall University with the semi-finals at 10:30 a.m. Consolation bouts start at 12:30 p.m. and the place round will begin at 1:30 p.m. The finals session will begin at 6:30 p.m.

EIWA Team Scoring 1. Cornell-68.5 2. Penn-56.5 3. Army-41.5 4. American-37.5 5. Navy-35 6. Bucknell-31 7. Lehigh-30 8. Brown-21 9. Harvard-18.5 10. Columbia-16.5 11. Rutgers-16 12. East Stroudsburg-8.5 13. Franklin & Marshall-7.5 14. Princeton-4