Big Weekend in Lehigh's Venerable "Snake Pit"

[ngineer]

Back to back matches with F&M Saturday afternoon, followed by #6 Cornell in Grace Hall. Lehigh currently ranked #10. Many posters on the various wrestling forums see this as an extremely close match with 6 of the 10 bouts considered toss-ups or one wrestler only marginally favored. Bonus points for either team could well be the difference as both schools are heavily favored at two weight classes each. Cornell at 125 with #2 Nashon Garrett going up against true freshman Parker, though Parker is showing very well this year. The other Big Red favorite is at 149 with #3 ranked Villalonga versus r-freshman Longo, who is scappy, but not in the ball park here. Lehigh's Randy Cruz at 141 is a heavy favorite and has been pinning people lately with a dangerous cradle. The other Brown & White grappler with heavy odds to win, but has not shown much offense this year is at 285 with Doug Vollaro. Doug consistently wins, but as typical at this weight class, the scores are low, so one wrong move can swing a lot of things. Many bouts will have implications for post season seeding in the EIWA Tournament and NCAA.

Matchups between nationally ranked wrestlers will occur at 133, 157, 184 and 197, with 184 being the headliner as #1 Gabe Dean of Cornell faces #3 Nate Brown. That one worth the price of admission, alone. Only tickets remaining are for SRO locations along the balcony. The place should be rocking. For those interested across the country, the match will be available on the Lehigh website. Go to www.lehighsports.com Follow links under wrestling and media. Might also be available through the EIWA website.

GO LEHIGH!

[ngineer]

Lehigh pummeled Franklin & Marshall today at Grace Hall, 40-6. The Brown & White gave two starters off to rest up for Sunday's match with #6 Cornell, and one of them got pinned. The only points scored by the Diplomats. Eight of Lehigh's wins were either pins or bonus wins. Nice crowd despite the 7" snowstorm this morning.

[ngineer]

Lehigh's wrestling team put on a gutsy performance tonight in front of a noisy and SRO crowd of about 2300 in Grace Hall but lost a tight match to Cornell 21-9. While Cornell won 7 of the 10 bouts, four of those winds came by razor thin margins, with two in sudden victory overtime. Cornell came in ranked #6 and Lehigh #10, so I suspect the rankings will be basically unchanged. Several of Cornell's top flight ranked grapplers (#2 Garrett @ 125, #7 Realbuto@ 157, #1 Dean @184 and #11 Bennett at 197) were taken to the limit by unranked Scott Parker at 125, #15 Minotti at 157 (who would have won had he "run", like many wrestlers do with a lead in the last 30 seconds, rather than try and score some more), Nate Brown @ 184 who lost on a questionable takedown call at the edge of the mat in sudden victory, and Elliott Riddick at 197 who appeared to have a takedown at the buzzer in regulation to win, but was ruled to still be in neutral. Riddick then lost on the rideout in overtime.

Lehigh wins came at 133 (Beckman, 9-3), 141 (Cruz, 3-0), and 285 (Vollaro, 5-2). Mt. Hawks are off until February 8 when they host Harvard and Brown in a Sunday afternoon doubleheader at Grace Hall starting at 12 noon. "Eyes on March!"