Lehigh wrestlers compete in great unknown
This year’s Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Championships, featuring three-time defending champion Lehigh University, will be unlike any that came before.
Safety concerns as a result of the coronavirus pandemic have turned this into a one-day event held off campus — at the Spooky Nook Sports Complex in Manheim, Pa — for the first time and with no fans or even outside media allowed.
What’s more, the nation’s oldest wrestling conference is operating at significantly reduced strength following the decision by its six Ivy League members and Franklin & Marshall to cancel their winter sports seasons.
Until this tournament, no overnight trips were even permitted by the conference.
The Mountain Hawks, always contenders even when they don’t win, enter following a frustrating, COVID-19marred regular season that produced a 3-4 record. They haven’t competed since falling to Rider, 17-15, on Feb. 7, thanks to their scheduled matches against American on Feb. 13 and Bucknell on Feb. 14 being canceled.
Lehigh also had January matches against Hofstra and Drexel called off.
Because of all these extreme circumstances, it’s difficult to project what lies ahead for the Hawks and the nine other programs who will be there. All anyone knows is that the 10 individual gold medalists plus 35 other place winners gain automatic entries to the NCAA Championships in St. Louis next month.
Nevertheless, the team heads into the unknown with a fearless approach after this season handed them nothing but lemons.
“I do think we have a lot of momentum,” senior 197-pounder Jake Jakobsen said. “We’ve made some great strides even though our record doesn’t appear to [show] it. But if you look at years past, it has been the same thing. We’ve always struggled during the regular season, and come postseason, we just find our niche and we just work hard and get through things and perform when we need to.”
“We’ve been all year just trying to focus on what we can control,” coach Pat Santoro added. “It’s been very frustrating. I think we’ve had more pauses and quarantines than just about any team in the country. But we’ve actually finally strung together three full weeks of practice with our whole team. That’s a first for us since we started kind of back in mid-November. So that’s good news going into the weekend.
“Now you’ve just got to go out and wrestle. There’s going to be a lot of good teams fighting. Obviously Navy is probably the front-runner but there’s a lot of good teams. Obviously, Army,
Drexel, Hofstra, Binghamton, all those schools that people don’t talk about a whole lot, are now … in the mix.”
Santoro will bring a lineup featuring four freshmen to Manheim.
One of them, Malyke Hines, is ranked 32nd in the nation at 133 pounds by The Open Mat. Another is Bethlehem Catholic graduate Luca Frinzi at 152.
Lehigh’s consensus top-ranked wrestler, though, is senior heavyweight Jordan Wood, who after seeing the Olympics postponed from 2020 to 2021 originally planned to take an Olympic redshirt in an attempt to train full-time in freestyle and make the U.S. team. But when the NCAA gave wrestlers who competed in the 2019-20 season an extra year of eligibility because the plug was abruptly pulled on the NCAA tournament due to COVID-19, Wood changed his mind and returned in January, and the Mountain Hawks couldn’t be happier.
Wood on Friday will seek to become just the fifth Lehigh wrestler and 13th overall to win four EIWA titles. But individual glory would be hollow without a team title.
“My top three moments here at Lehigh are holding the [team] trophyattheendoftheEIWAtournament,” he said. “It’s such a good feeling leaving that tournament knowing that we put together two great days of wrestling.”
Wood, Hynes, Jaret Lane (125) and Jakobsen (197) have been pre-seeded at No. 1 in their weight class.
Lane probably has been Lehigh’s biggest surprise. He’s taken control at 125 after Phillipsburg grad and formerly nationally ranked Brandon Paetzell moved up and ultimately was not included in Lehigh’s postseason lineup due mostly to “things out of his control,” according to Santoro. Paetzell is expected back next season.
Never content with merely outscoring his opponents, Lane always works for the pin and this season has succeeded with that goal more often than not, scoring falls three times in five matches, all wins. When you add those pins to the nine he produced last season at 133, it gives the Southern Columbia graduate 12 in his Lehigh career, or 108 less than he had in high school.
“I’ve always been known as a pinner throughout my wrestling
career,” Lane said. “I had 120 pins in high school, and the object of a wrestling match is to pin the guy. So getting creative in the practice room … getting in those positions and feeling it around and being comfortable there, you just go out on the mat and create those opportunities and something will happen, and I’ve been able to do that quite a few times this year.”
NOTE: There will be no radio or TV coverage of this event. Flowrestling.org will provide streaming coverage of the entire tournament. A subscription is required.
Morning Call reporter Nick Fierro can be reached at 610-7782243 or nfierro@mcall.com.