Judgment day is finally here for Pat Santoro and his 10 overachieving starters as they take the bus ride down to Raleigh, N.C., for tomorrow’s ACC championships.
Santoro’s seemingly upstart program that burst onto the national scene this season has been years in the making. After going 15-32-1 in his first three seasons, the fourth-year head coach posted the best dual-meet win total in school history with 17 wins. Clearly the Terrapin wrestling team is no overnight success.
With two stellar recruiting classes that included No. 15-ranked redshirt freshman Hudson Taylor and No. 13-ranked freshman Mike Letts, the Terrapin wrestling team might not only win an ACC title this season, but it should compete for championships in the future as well.
“This is truly a team,” Santoro said. “We’ve learned how to keep momentum in our favor, and when someone falters, someone else steps up in his place.”
Taylor started and won all five of his ACC matches this season, and will anchor a Terp team that hasn’t won an ACC title since 1973. The Terps are heavily favored to add a team championship to their 5-0 ACC regular season mark.
“It’s been great watching all of the hard work finally come to show,” senior Jerry Afari said. “About midway through the season everyone began seeing improvements, and we pretty much just rode that wave all the way to this point.”
Fellow senior Jason Kiessling anchored the Terps’ solid regular-season performance and is favored to clinch a conference championship and, in turn, an NCAA championship berth. Any wrestler who wins an ACC championship automatically receives a berth in the NCAA tournament; at-large bids are also awarded after the conference tournaments.
Through the entire season, Santoro repeated the same phrases: ACC champions. National champions. All-Americans. For the Terps, that all begins tomorrow.
Contact reporter Robert Klemko at rklemkodbk@gmail.com.
