The Terrapin wrestling team literally had Rider and Rutgers pinned to the ground Saturday at the Comcast Pavilion, continuing a string of strong performances.
The No. 23 Terps (7-3) demolished their opponents in a dual meet, beating Rider 42-6, then Rutgers 39-4. The squad won 18 of the 20 matches in the two duals. Of the wins, four were major decisions and five were pins.
“I thought the team wrestled very well today,” coach Pat Santoro said. “Rider and Rutgers are two great teams. It’s the sixth week in a row that we’re competing, so we were ready for a let-down, but we responded well to the pressure.”
Redshirt sophomore Brendan Byrne started the strong day on the mat, pinning on Bronc wrestler Mitch Fenton in the third period in the 125-pound weight class match, giving the Terps a lead they would never relinquish. With the six-point fall, Byrne earned more points than Rider gained the entire match.
Freshman Eric Medina, who just broke into the top-20 this week at No. 17 in the 149-pound weight class, upset No. 14 Don Fisch, Rider’s senior All-American.
No. 20 Josh Haines scored a narrow 2-1 decision over No. 10 Doug Umbehauer in a close match. In the redshirt junior’s third win against a ranked opponent, hisexcellent riding gave him the edge and helped round out the Terps’ victory.
“Rider’s a little beat up right now,” Santoro said. “A few of their starters are out. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. And Rutgers just got a new coach, Scott Goodale. We didn’t really know what to expect – just that they would be well-coached and ready to compete.”
Against the Scarlet Knights, three Terps in a row recorded falls to seal the win.
Heading into the last four matches of the day in weight classes, Rutgers still had an outside chance for a comeback, but any hope was quickly extinguished as Letts, redshirt freshman Bradley Nielsen – substituting for Haines – and Taylor, strung together three pins.
Letts wasted no time, pinning Mike Whalen with only 1:14 gone from the clock, but the inexperienced Nielsen took his time getting the fall. He fell behind early against Keith Dobish, 4-0, but clawed his way back into the match, bringing the score to 4-3 before pinning Dobish with only 15 seconds left on the clock.
Taylor also recorded the fall in the third period, but he dominated Lamar Brown the entire match, and was up 9-0 before the pin, his ninth of the year and his fifth straight.
Redshirt freshman Patrick Gilmore beat Karim Mahmoud 3-2 in the heavyweight class to finish off the win.”Anytime you get a pin, that’s a good thing,” Santoro said. “The pin is the name of the game. You wanna get the pin. That’s what we’ve been working on – turning and getting the pin. We’d been riding well before this week, but we’d had trouble with turning. This is the first week that our turning has really been working for us, and to get three pins in a row, that’s exactly what we want to see.”
The team’s freshmen also shined against Rutgers. Medina had a 10-2 major decision over Spencer Kent.
Every Terp that wrestled won at least one of their matches over the course of the two duals. The team hopes the trend will continue, even through the Terps’ next three weeks off.
“We’re off to the Southern Scuffle December 29-30 [in Greensboro, N.C.],” Santoro said. “We’re glad we’ll have time to heal up a little. We’ll have time to rest up, get through finals, and prepare. To get these two wins before the rest, that’s really good for our team.”
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