First let me apologize for not getting a weekly recap out to you all last week. My wife gave birth to our second daughter (Grace Mackenzie Garland, who weighed in at a scrappy 8lbs 3oz) last Tuesday and it was a crazy week to say the least. I am happy to get the first addition of the Garland recaps out to you today as we have plenty to talk about.
This past weekend our team found a way to sweep the three dual meets and improve to 5-0 on the season. It wasn't pretty but our boys stepped up when they had to. We still have a lot of work to do but we are happy that we are moving into the biggest dual meet weekend of this young season (when we take on #12 ranked Central Michigan and #22 ranked Hofstra on November 28th) undefeated.
Now, without further delay, here are the notes from the weekend:
Bucknell Dual Meet Recap: Virginia 20 Bucknell 13
125: Matt Snyder (now 9-2 on the season) got the team started on the right foot with an 8-2 decision. He narrowly missed earning bonus points for the team by just missing a couple turns from the top position late in the match against his Bucknell opponent. Matt has a lot of work to do offensively, but he is very hard to score on, is a great scrambler and is one of the best wrestlers from the top position in our room. He makes it exciting every time he is out there. You will undoubtedly be hearing this young man's name a lot more in the future. The most impressive thing to note is that Matt is a tireless worker in the classroom as well and is on track to reach close to a 4.0 GPA this semester in a pre-med track. He is what I like to affectionately refer to as "rainman smart".
133: Freshman Matt Cubillos took the mat against the #8 ranked wrestler in the nation in Dave Marble and held his own. Marble is as tenacious a competitor as you'll see in our sport and Matt fought hard the whole match. In the end he was overwhelmed from the top position and Marble was able to earn bonus points with a 9-1 major decision. Cubillos is another guy who you probably don't know much about so please let me fill you in. Matt was a late "signee" last Spring and has been such a great kid to work with. He comes in everyday with a smile on his face, ready to work and has been battling in the room with Gitomer, Sndyer and the rest of our lightweight crew. He obviously has a lot to learn as a true freshman but he has the right attitude and that is the most important thing.
141: Derek Valenti got us back on track with an 8-5 win over a very tough Zach Hancock (former prep star out of Ohio). Derek will be the first to tell you this was not his most impressive match but he did what he had to do to earn the victory. Derek is another very tough wrestler from the top position but will need to keep steadily improving his offense in order to reach the lofty goals he has set for himself. What many of you don't know about Derek is that last season he lost in double overtime to our very own Nick Nelson (who oh by the way was nationally ranked at #8 coming into this season) and lost a one point match to then #10 Chris Diaz of Virginia Tech last year as well. He won 30 matches last year but somehow flew under the radar a bit. Like Snyder, he has work to do, but he is one of the toughest, most competitive kids you'll ever see and I think he's going to have a great season for us this year.
149: Shawn Harris got the start for this particular dual meet and lost a very close 1-0 decision to Kevin LeValley of Bucknell. LeValley is an extremely tough kid and this was a great match. These two guys handf-ought each other all over the mat for 7 minutes. Shawn had a single leg takedown early in the second period that probably would have won him the match, but was unable to finish the shot and this cost him in the end. As you may remember, Shawn came in with the big recruiting class of a few years back and took 3rd in the ACC in his first year with us. Last season he battled through a career threatening neck injury and missed the entire competitive campaign. He is now back and trying to get as many matches in as he can to get the flow back he once had. We call Shawn "the hurricane" b/c of his attacking style and his work ethic when he trains. He really just needs to keep competing and get as many bouts in as he can. When you miss an entire season in our sport it is tough to come back and "click" right away. Shawn is not clicking yet but the season is very young. He has plenty of time to improve.
157: Danny Gonsor got us back on track with an 8-3 win over Brantley Hooks of Bucknell. Gonsor's best position is on top as well (are you starting to catch a theme here?) and he was able to turn his Bucknell opponent to put the match out of reach. Danny was 14-3 as a redshirt last season and is a former University National All American, Fila Junior National All American and started the majority of his first year here with us back in the 2007-2008 season. He has loads of potential but will need to focus on consistency when he competes to beat the best of the best.
165: Michael Chaires then took on Bucknell's best wrestler in All American and #6 ranked Andy Rendos. Rendos was able to break the match open in the second period with a reversal and 3 back points (with the score tied at 2-2 Chaires got sloppy on top and was reversed to his back). Mike never recovered his composure after this. Mike missed all of last season with shoulder surgery but is healthy now. As many of you know, he is extremely talented and will continue to get better the more he competes. Like Harris, he just needs more mat time to improve.
174: This match was the biggest disappointment of the entire dual meet. Please allow me to explain...Chris came right out and took #13 Shane Riccio down in the first 20 seconds of the match and proceeded to ride him out the entire period. He was cruising along with a 3-0 lead early in the second period but then did one of the dumbest things I've ever seen him do. He tried to roll through on a "suicide cradle" (you can figure out how risky a move it is by the wonderful name) and was caught on his back for a 5 point move. Chris is a very intelligent guy and a smart wrestler on the mat as well. This careless maneuver is completely out of character for him and I was shocked when he tried it. If he didn't try to roll through he would have had a takedown and thus would have been up 5-0 and the match would have essentially been over. Instead of being on cruise control however, he then was in a dogfight with all the momentum shifting in Riccio's favor. In short, Chris came back and scored what we thought would be the winning takedown with 20 seconds left in the third period. He took Riccio down with a knee pull that should have iced the match. But he again made a very strange mistake and was reversed to send it into overtime. In overtime he had another takedown waved off by the official and the match went into double OT with Riccio pulling out the victory. It was a very tough loss to watch b/c we know what Chris is capable of. We have to give credit to the Senior from Bucknell however who capitalized on all Henrich's mistakes and was able to earn the biggest win of his career. The silver lining in this is that Chris will undoubtedly learn from his errors and be even more motivated for his All Star match appearance this weekend in California (where he will take on #7 ranked Chris Dwyer of Nebraska).
184: This weight class was the turning point in the match and ultimately propelled us to victory. I can't give Mike Salopek enough credit here. After the crushing loss described above we had to have a big win and Mike gave it to us with a hard fought 4-2 victory over a very tough Rob Waltko. Waltko was a huge recruit coming out of high school a few years back and is actually from the same area as Salopek in Western Pennsylvania. Mike is coming off a great redshirt year and is another new face that I think you'll be very impressed with moving forward.
197: Brent Jones is still recovering from the flu from last week which really has set him back. He looked better in this match though and scored 3 takedowns to earn the victory. This win put us in the driver's seat with one more bout to go.
Hwt: Calvin Cardillo looked as good as I've ever seen him look in this bout. He finished off the victory for our team with a very impressive 16-1 technical fall. Calvin has been working very hard and has shown us great heart this year. He and Salopek get the MVP's of the dual meet.
Gardner Webb Dual Meet Virginia 50 Gardner Webb 0
As you can tell from the score this was a pretty lopsided match. Derek Valenti, Michael Chaires, Stephen Doty (who earned his first college dual meet win for us..great kid!!) Mike Salopek and Brent Jones all recorded pins for our team. Of special note in this match was the return of Ross Gitomer to the line up. He looked great and racked up a bunch of takedowns in route to a major decision victory. Ross had ACL surgery last winter and has been working tirelessly to get back in the line up. He looked great and watching him wrestle again was the highlight of the day for me. He went through a lot last year and he deserves to be back out there having fun.
American Dual Meet Recap Virginia 20 American 19
I'm not going to candy coat this description. This was one of the worst starts to a dual meet I've ever been a part of. We were down 16-0 at one point. We looked flat, and out of sync the whole way until Mike Chaires got us on track with a win. Then Chris Henrich pinned his opponent quickly, Mike Salopek received a forfeit (#4 ranked Cannon of American injured his neck the match before) and then Brent Jones put the match away with an impressive 12-2 major decision victory. There really isn't much more to say about this one. We did enough to win but obviously the effort and performance isn't good enough. We want to keep climbing in the national rankings and wrestling like this won't get us there. Of special note in this match is Ross Gitomer stepping up for his team and bumping up a weight class against a very tough Thomas Williams of American. We couldn't afford to give up bonus points in this match and we asked Ross to bump up to help the team. He didn't hesitate and said he'd love to do it. He lost a close 5-1 match but b/c he didn't give up the bonus points we ultimately won the dual. In a world of "ME" it was nice to see a guy think of "We". Ross is the ultimately team player and leader and he helped us scrap that win out yesterday.
All in all, we have a lot to build on but there is no question that many mistakes need to be corrected. Stay tuned for my next update which will be coming next Monday morning.
P.S. As I mentioned above Nick Nelson will now be redshirting. We have a very impressive crop of talented wrestlers that will be redshirting this year. This list includes Nick Nelson, first year's Zach Clemente, Nicky Gordon and Jon Fausey and will also include last year's first year star Jedd Moore (who was an NCAA qualifier a year ago at 157lbs and won 30 matches). We feel we have a great plan in place to maximize the abilities of each of these kids and lookout America for next year's team when they are back in the line-up. Wow!!!