Monday, November 28, 2011

Bearcat Wrestling: *6-0*

It was a great weekend for the Bearcats as we won all four matches at the Northeast Duals and improved to 6-0 on the season.  We beat top 25 ranked Purdue, Army, Arizona State, and Eastern Michigan.  Donnie Vinson, Justin Lister, and Cody Reed all went 4-0 on the day to lead the team.  All four beat ranked wrestlers over the course of the day.  Kaylor and Schiedel started slow and dropped their first bouts before winning the next three.  Steeley beat a returning national qualifier.  Hunter got a pin over a very good wrestler from Arizona State.  Bonaldi scored two over time wins.  Gwiazdowski dropped a close match to a returning All-American and won his other two bouts.

We started the day with a 24-15 win over Purdue.  Steeley started us off with a big win over a returning national qualifier (Eppert) in overtime 13-11 after starting the match down 9-2.  He started slow but came back strong and looked very good late in the match.  Bonaldi picked up a win over a tough Purdue opponent in overtime.  Bonaldi is getting better and better and does not stop wrestling and it paid off here.  Vinson scored a dominate 18-2 technical fall against top ten ranked Lopouchanski.  Donnie was up 13-2 when his opponent called an injury time out.  Donnie stayed aggressive after the break and quickly secured the technical fall.  Lister scored one of his two falls on the day against Purude and wrestled very well.  Reed was very impressive throughout the day and picked up bonus points with a10-2 win.  Gwiazdowski won a tight 3-2 match that he wrestled a little conservative against Vokubratovich.  This was a first win against a Big Ten opponent and the guys wrestled well overall.

In our second match we beat Army 20-13.  Army, as usual, wrestled hard and is a much improved team from last year.  Hunter picked up a good win over White 6-1 with a couple of takedowns.  Vinson had his closest match of the day, a seven point victory over Young of Army.  Lister scored an 8-2 win over a solid Rafferty.  Kaylor got back on track after a disappointing first round loss with a 20-9 major decision.  Schiedel nearly teched his opponent winning 14-0.  Reed picked up a victory and sealed the deal.

We won a 28-15 bout against a very talented Arizona State team.  Hunter had a very exciting bout that saw back and forth action before Hunter pulled away with a solid lead and eventually secured the fall.  His pin was against McGough, who had just majored a top twenty wrestler.  Vinson majored a two-time Junior College National Champion.  Lister picked up another fall right at the end of the match.  Kaylor made it two falls in a row with a barbwire.  Schidel scored the winning takedown right at the end of the match against Radford to secure the win against Arizona State.  Reed beat a ranked wrestler (Burriel) in a solid 9-7 win that saw Reed score two takedowns and two reversals in a match where he outwrestled his opponent in nearly every position.  Gwiazdowski lost a tight 9-6 bout.  He made a freshman mistake late in the third period.  He had Cooper tired and scored a takedown but instead of cutting him and going for the winning takedown, he tried to ride and got reversed.

We finished the day with a 22-12 triumph against Eastern Michigan.  EMU is a very underrated team that is as good of an EMU team as I can remember.  Bonaldi got us on the board with an overtime win 10-8.  Bonaldi got down early but fought back and “never backed down."  Vinson shut his opponent out 10-0 to finish the day a perfect 4-0.  Lister beat returning national qualifier Sulzer 8-4.  Kaylor won 9-5 over nationally ranked France.  Schidel won 4-0 and completely shut down his opponent.  Reed and Gwiazdowski both picked up solid 3-1 decision victories over Whittenburg and Schroeder respectively.

It was a great weekend and we head into Princeton 6-0 Saturday, followed by the Penn State Open on Sunday.  I will preview both of those later this week.  We did a better job as a team hustling and wrestling on the edge of the mat this week.  We will continue to improve and will have a hard week of practice this week.


--------------------------------------------------------------

Below are two videos from Flowrestling from this weekend's events.

1 comment:

  1. Some light comments from this weekend's duals:

    1) Joe Bonaldi is going to prematurely age the coaches if he doesn't quit waiting until overtime to secure his wins.

    2) With Duanesburg nearby, it was nice to see a large turnout of enthusiastic supporters for Nick.

    3) The Undersized Wrestler of the Day Award goes to 149 pound Joe Chamish for fearlessly and competitively wrestling in the 174 pound class.

    4) As always, it was nice to see true freshman Tyler Deuel get some varsity experience.

    5) The ASU match was a thriller. You could tell how the crowd and the wrestlers were pumped! Three pins by BU against a big name school!

    6) The Unexpected Strength Move of the Day Award goes to Coach Beasley for the apparent ease with which he lifted Pat Hunter after Pat suffered his ankle injury.

    7) The Workhorse of the Day Award goes to Cody Reed. As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said in the movie 'Airplane!', "Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes." Cody did all that and more in 4 matches that went the distance against strong opponents.

    8) ASU wrestlers spend a lot of time in the weight room...those are some rugged guys.

    9) Get well soon to all of the BU wrestlers, especially Pat Hunter. All of you guys must really be beat up after Saturday.

    On a personal note, it was nice meeting you, Colleen.

    ~Arnie

    ReplyDelete