By Gary R. Blockus
Of The Morning Call
ST. LOUIS, Mo. | Travis Frick never thought of getting a nose job, but he will be getting one within a week.
Frick, Lehigh’s 174-pound wrestler, sustained a mobile fracture of his nose in the opening round of the 75th NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships after banging heads with Virginia’s Rocco Caponi. In Thursday night’s subsequent 3-1 loss to Eric Hauan of Northern Iowa, Frick’s nose literally burst open.
The cartilage at the top of the nose broke through the skin, and suddenly, Frick’s hopes for repeating as an All-American were in jeopardy. Frick, a junior from Nazareth, was placed on antibiotics to guard against infection after he bled profusely throughout each of his final three matches. He put together a gutty effort executed despite pain and impaired breathing, yet came up two wins shy of All-American after a loss to American’s Daniel Waters, whom he had beaten in the EIWA finals.
”He doesn’t want to use that as an excuse,” Lehigh coach Greg Strobel said of Frick’s injury, which forced him to wear a protective facemask on Friday that hindered his already hampered ability to breathe.
‘I’ll tell you,” Strobel continued, ”for him to even continue to wrestle, that was pretty impressive. Talk about heart. Last week at practice, he worked so hard I thought he’d be an All-American for sure.”
Frick has one more season to regain his All-American status.
Winds of misfortune: Day 2 at nationals started off with just six wrestlers from The Morning Call area still alive: Cory Cooperman (141), Troy Letters (165) and Jon Trenge (197) from Lehigh, all in the winners bracket, and Matt Benza (Tamaqua) of Air Force at 133, and Lehigh’s Matt Ciasulli (Easton) and Travis Frick (Nazareth) at 133 and 174, respectively, in the consolations.
Cooperman, Letters and Trenge earned All-American status as Top 8 finishers.
Navy’s Sam Gray pinned Benza (24-12) to eliminate him in the first round of Thursday morning’s two consolation rounds.
Ciasulli (28-7) also got eliminated in the first consi round on Friday. He led unseeded Derek Moore of Cal-Davis 4-2 with a riding time advantage going into the final period and chose the defensive position. Moore not only rode him out, but scored a three-point tilt in the waning seconds to win 5-4.
Gone, but certainly not forgotten, were five other area wrestlers who were eliminated on Thursday night.
Seth Lisa (15-8), a 133-pounder for West Virginia from Northampton, lost two straight and was eliminated on Thursday night in the consolations by Benza.
Bloomsburg 133-pounder Tony Curto (22-12) won his pigtail bout, but the former Wilson wrestler also lost two straight.
Lehigh’s Matt Anderson (149) got majored by No. 1 seed Zack Esposito, brother of two-time Lehigh All-American Dave Esposito, in the opening round, then got pinned in the consolation round to finish his sophomore season 15-7.
Lehigh 157-pounder Derek Zinck (Upper Perkiomen) entered the tourney as the No. 9 seed but had a terrible draw. He lost to unseeded C.P. Schlatter of Minnesota, who was the No. 1 recruit at any weight two years ago. (Schlatter’s younger brother is ranked by many as the No. 1 recruit in the nation this year.)
Zinck (21-6) then dropped a heartbreaking 7-4 loss to Kevin Ward of Oklahoma State, a wrestler whom he had beaten twice this season.
Rider’s Sean Jenkins (19-13), a Parkland graduate, lost two bouts at 174. Jenkins graduated from Brown last season, but had one year of eligibility left, so he decided to wrestle at Rider, where his brother Derek is an assistant coach.
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