Losses by Troy Letters, Jon Trenge leave team without NCAA finalist.
By Gary R. Blockus
Of The Morning Call
ST. LOUIS, Mo. |
Dreams died painfully on Friday night.
Troy Letters will never tie Mike Caruso’s Lehigh record as a three-time national champion.
Jon Trenge will never win an NCAA title.
Letters and Trenge, the only two area wrestlers who advanced to the semifinals at the 75th NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, saw their dreams die in the penultimate round.
Letters, undefeated all season, got turned for backpoints for the first time in his collegiate career as Iowa freshman Mark Perry upset the defending national champion at 165.
Trenge, like Letters a two-time NCAA finalist, saw his last shot at an NCAA title slip away with a 5-3 loss to No. 5 seed Sean Stender of Northern Iowa, whom he had defeated at national duals.
”I’m in shock, I really am,” said an expressionless Greg Strobel, Lehigh’s coach, who won’t have a wrestler in the national finals for the first time since 2000. ”[Trenge had] beaten this guy earlier in the year. It’s typical of our weekend.”
Lehigh brought seven wrestlers to the national tournament and hoped to compete for second place behind Oklahoma State, which has already clinched the team title. Only Trenge, a senior, and juniors Cory Cooperman (141) and Letters achieved All-American status. All three will wrestle two consolation bouts today. The first bout will determine whether they wrestle for third or fifth place.
Both Letters and Trenge had talked about the importance of getting the first takedown in a match, something neither wrestler accomplished in the semifinals. There were no takedowns in the Letters-Perry bout, and Trenge gave up two takedowns but didn’t get any of his own.
Letters, the seemingly indestructible rubber band of a wrestler who majors in tilts on the mat, got tilted for the first time in his Lehigh career and it cost him the opportunity for a third straight trip to the finals.
Perry (27-4) fought off Letters’ takedown attempts in the first period, titled him for three backpoints in the second, and bellied out for a 3-0 victory over Lehigh’s returning national champion, handing Letters (25-1) his first loss of the season.
”Tonight, Letters didn’t feel strong at all, ” Perry said. ”He actually did not take one shot.”
Letters looked uncharacteristically tense during his pre-match skipping as the semifinals were held up for television. Travis Paulson of Iowa State busted open Letters’ chin in the quarterfinals. Letters received 10 stitches in the chin after that match, which he won 4-0.
Strobel said the pressure Letters felt as the returning 165-pound titlist definitely crested on Friday.
”It’s the first time I’ve seen him turned,” Strobel admitted. Letters nearly reversed Perry after getting tilted and had him turned on his back, but couldn’t clear Perry from his leg, so instead of getting two points for a reverse plus backpoints, Letters didn’t score.
”You lose a match, you have to go on,” Strobel said. ”It’s going to be tough for him. I may have to take his shoelaces off him tonight,” he said jokingly.
Letters will face the winner of the match between Chattanooga’s Jon Sioredas and Columbia’s Matt Palmer for the right to wrestle for third place. Cooperman will face Michael Keefe, also from Chattanooga, for the right to wrestle for third.
In the 197 semifinals, Stender shocked Trenge on an ankle pick for a takedown with 3 seconds left in the opening period. Those first points proved crucial. Trenge escaped to start the third period, but got taken down again when Stender sidestepped Trenge’s shot. Trenge picked up riding time in the third period but could not turn the Hawkeye.
Lehigh finished the regular season ranked No. 5 in the country with Letters and Trenge both ranked No. 1 and Cooperman ranked No. 4. The Mountain Hawks finished tied for third as a team at nationals last year with five All-Americans, but will return to Bethlehem with just three this time.
”We’re just a half-step off,” Strobel lamented. ”I think it’s more mental than physical ” in fact I know it’s more mental.”
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