After losing to the University of Pennsylvania Saturday, the Terrapin wrestling team found itself on the edge of losing in an upset for the second-straight day yesterday when No. 7-ranked Hudson Taylor took the mat for the Terps at Columbia.
Taylor’s pin of Nick Sommerfield four minutes into the 197-pound weight class match put the Terps up 19-9, all but sealing the win for the Terps with only two matches remaining. They would go on to defeat the Lions 22-12 a day after having their eight-game winning streak ended by the Quakers the previous day.
The No. 21 Terps (13-4, 4-0 ACC) started the weekend with a 19-16 upset loss to Penn. The Quakers were ranked No. 23 earlier this season, so the Terps knew what to expect going into the match.
“Penn has a really strong team,” said redshirt sophomore and team captain Hudson Taylor in a phone interview on Sunday.
Against Pennsylvania Saturday, the Terps led most of the way in the tight match.
The Terps were up 16-12 going into the second-to-last match of the day, in which redshirt freshman heavyweight Patrick Gilmore faced Pennsylvania’s Trey McLean. Gilmore lost a major decision to McLean, 17-7, going 0-2 on the weekend.
This set up a showdown going into the last match of the day. Redshirt sophomore Brendan Byrne was pitted against his former teammate at Blair Academy in New Jersey, Pennsylvania’s No. 8 Rollie Peterkin, in the 125 lb. weight class.
It was an uphill battle for Byrne, who fell 6-0 to Peterkin, giving the Quakers the upset win.
Other Terps shared in Byrne’s struggles. Redshirt junior Josh Haines, No. 17 in the 184 lb. weight class, was narrowly upset by Lior Zamir of Pennsylvania, 2-0, which brought the Quakers within a point of the Terps, 13-12.
Against Columbia, sophomores Mookie Goldman and Jon Kohler helped the Terps by winning the first two matches of the day, providing a seven-point lead. While the Lions would close the gap to one, the Terps never relinquished the lead. Goldman was part of a group of fresh faces who got time on the mat this weekend, as the Terps used the road trip to season some of their more inexperienced wrestlers.
In his win, Goldman took the spot normally occupied by redshirt sophomore Stephen Bell in the 133 lbs. weight class. Junior Steve Fehnel competed in the 149 lb. weight class rather than the usual starter, freshman Eric Medina, though he did not repeat Goldman’s success, losing 5-3 to Anthony Constantino of Columbia.
Medina and fellow freshman Brian Letters, who in previous weeks performed well for the Terps despite their youth, succumbed to Pennsylvania’s No. 14 Cesar Grajales and Rob Hitschler, respectively. Letters lost both his weekend matches, while Medina did not wrestle Sunday.
Taylor, Letts, Kohler and Steven Bell were the only Terps to win their matches against the Quakers, although it was enough to keep the team in the lead until the very end. Kohler, Taylor and Letts each won both of their matches this weekend.
The Terps face American next weekend, when they’ll try to build on the tight win over Columbia.
“This team has the potential, all the right tools, and is doing all the right things,” Taylor said. “It all comes down to how we perform these next few weeks. But if we keep moving forward, there should be no question that a lot of guys will be headed to nationals.”
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