The Mountain Hawks fall 24-9 to Oklahoma St. in front of 5,828 fans.
By Gary R. Blockus
Of The Morning Call
Lehigh University’s wrestling team performed in front of the largest home crowd in its storied history on Sunday.
The outcome had to leave a good portion of the 5,828 fans ” the largest single-session indoor sporting crowd ever assembled in the Lehigh Valley ” scratching their heads in wonder.
Oklahoma State, the top-ranked team in the country, swept the last five bouts and smoked the No. 4 Mountain Hawks 24-9 at Stabler Arena.
”It’s a little disappointing,” said Lehigh 174-pounder Travis Frick, ranked No. 6 in the country, who dropped a decision to top-ranked (and defending NCAA champion) Chris Pendleton. ”We’ve been looking forward to this for a while, obviously trying to peak.”
Lehigh split the 10 bouts against the Cowboys at national duals back in January, but lost seven of the 10 on Sunday.
”I thought from the last dual at national duals to now, they made the better match adjustments,” said Lehigh coach Greg Strobel, who juggled his regular lineup a bit to puzzle many of the observers.
The match started off at 157, where Derek Zinck kick started the home team with a 6-4 decision over 20th-ranked Kevin Ward. Troy Letters, Lehigh’s defending national champ at 165, followed with a 5-2 win over No. 3 Johny Hendricks, and Lehigh led 6-0.
Frick, ranked No. 6 at 174, lost 8-2 to Pendleton, but didn’t give up a major decision as he did at national duals, and suddenly Lehigh looked one point closer than that 20-16 loss.
Senior co-captain Jon Trenge, ranked No. 3 at 197, followed with a narrow 3-2 win over top-ranked Jake Rosholt ” the second straight time Trenge has beaten the Cowboy. In fact, Rosholt has lost his last three dual meets against Lehigh wrestlers, dropping a decision to Frick last season.
Lehigh’s chances looked even better at heavyweight after Steve Mocco, a 2003 NCAA champ, 2002 runner-up and currently ranked No. 1 in the country, scored a technical fall over Paul Weibel. Because Mocco didn’t pick up any backpoints, the tech fall was worth just four points, not five. Mocco pinned Tom Curl at national duals, so Lehigh had cut down on three team points for Oklahoma State at that point.
Strobel replaced 125-pound senior Andrew Rizzi with sophomore John Stout, who dropped a decision to Derek Stevens. Rizzi had been majored by another OSU wrestler at national duals, and the loss by regular decision effectively wiped out OSU’s margin of victory from national duals.
That’s when the bottom dropped out for Lehigh.
At 133, Lehigh needed fifth-ranked Matt Ciasulli, a sophomore out of Easton, to come through with another win over eighth-ranked Nathan Morgan.
Ciasulli trailed the entire match, but drew new life when referee Gary Kessel hit Morgan for stalling at the buzzer. Morgan backed off a restart (after already receiving a warning) with 17 seconds left, then backed off on a Ciasulli shot to give up the penalty point. Ciasulli escaped in the second overtime period, but gave up a stalling point of his own. The bout went all the way to the sixth overtime period, where Morgan earned a reverse for a 6-4 decision, avenging his loss from the national duals while tipping the scales back toward OSU.
Then, at 141, Strobel sent out freshman Jeff Santo, who wrestled 133 this season, instead of third-ranked Cory Cooperman. Santo scored a four-point move on Ronnie Delk at the end of the bout, but the 14-12 loss sealed the win for the Cowboys (19-0).
”We took a gamble just in case some magic happened,” Strobel admitted.
Cooperman suffered a hamstring injury against Army on Friday, and Strobel was hoping Santo could score more points on Delk and come out with a win. If Ciasulli and Santo had both won, Strobel was willing to send Cooperman out at 149 against top-ranked Zack Esposito with the winner claiming the match for his team. Unfortunately for Lehigh and the large crowd, both Ciasulli and Santo lost, and Cooperman never wrestled.
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