Four Scarlet Knight Wrestlers Place In EIWA Championships
Mar 08 | Wrestling
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Four Scarlet Knights placed in their respective weight brackets, highlighted by freshman Scott Winston’s (Jackson, N.J.) third place performance at 157 pounds, in the final day of the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships Sunday at the Palestra in Philadelphia. Rutgers finished just behind Harvard (48.5) in ninth with a final team score of 47.5 in the highly-competitive 14-team tournament.
Winston and heavyweight D.J. Russo (Netcong, N.J.), who finished in fourth place in his weight class, earned automatic bids to the NCAA Championships, which will take place March 19-21 in St. Louis, Mo. Senior Matt Pletcher (Eastampton, N.J.) placed fourth at 165 pounds and freshman Trevor Melde (Hewitt, N.J.) placed fifth at 141 pounds. Pletcher and Melde now await possible at-large bids to Nationals, which will be announced later this week. It marks the second-straight year, under the direction of second-year head coach Scott Goodale, Rutgers will send multiple competitors to Nationals.
In a matchup of two of the best wrestlers in the nation in the 157 pound weight class, Winston, ranked 12th nationally, dropped a 4-2 decision to Harvard’s J.P. O’Connor, ranked fourth nationally, in the semifinal round. Winston, the fourth seed, rebounded with 10-5 victory over Bucknell’s Scott Sechler in the consolation bracket and pinned Penn’s Matt Dragon, the third seed and 17th ranked wrestler nationally, in 2:26 to place third in the weight class and earn the bid to nationals in his first season of collegiate action.
Russo, the sophomore heavyweight and eighth seed in the bracket, earned three wins in the consolation bracket Sunday to advance to the bracket’s final bout. He suffered a hard-fought, 8-6 loss to Chris Burchler of East Stroudsburg to finish fourth in the weight class. His three victories on the day came against Quinton Pruett of American (9-1), Andrew Knapp of Harvard (8-0) and third-seeded Trey McLean of Penn (11-8). He finished the two-day tournament with a 4-2 record.
Pletcher was pinned by top-seeded and undefeated Mack Lewness of Cornell, the No. 1 ranked wrestler in the nation in the 165-pound weight class, in 2:39 in the semifinal round. Lewness went on to take the weight class title. Pletcher, however, rebounded to take fourth place. He posted a 5-2 victory over Christopher Stout of American in consolation action. In the finals of the bracket, the Scarlet Knight suffered a 7-3 loss to Mike Galante of Lehigh, the third seed in the tournament and 14th ranked wrestler nationally.
Melde, the fourth seed at 141 pounds, dropped a 4-2 decision to Harvard’s Corey Jantzen, the top seed in the weight class and the fourth-ranked wrestler nationally, in the semifinal round and Army’s William Simpson pinned the Scarlet Knight in 4:49 in consolation action. However, Melde rebounded with a 6-1 victory over Matt Mariacher of American to place sixth in the weight class. It was his second victory over Mariacher in the two-day tournament.
Senior 174-pounder Mike Whalen (Lake Hiawatha, N.J.), the eighth seed in the weight class, was defeated by fifth-seeded Alex Caruso of Lehigh, 4-0, in the consolation bracket, eliminating him from the tournament. He finished 2-2 in the two-day event.
