Lehigh sending 7 to wrestling championships
Nazareth’s Sasso and B.C.’s Labriola also earn spots
Max Brignola isn’t afraid to admit he didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he was in first grade.
He and his twin brother, Tyler, went to their first wrestling practice at the urging of a friend.
“At first, I thought it was WWE and was psyched for the sport,” said Max, a true freshman at Lehigh University and one of seven Mountain Hawks who will be competing at the 2022 NCAA DIvision I Wrestling Championships Thursday through Saturday at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
When he found out he wouldn’t be climbing to the top rope or head-smashing opponents into the turnbuckle, it made no difference.
“Me and my brother thought we’d be good at it because we always got scrappy with each other,” the 149-pounder said. “Then we got there and started learning the moves. I wasn’t disappointed it wasn’t WWE. I just thought it was another cool thing to do. I was hooked from the start. I thought it was a pretty cool sport.”
Brignola came off a planned redshirt year on Feb. 4 when he made his dual meet debut with a 4-3 loss to Anthony Artalona of Penn, and then a 3-2 loss to Army West Point’s Matt Williams before going 4-1 at the EIWA Championships to place third and clinch an automatic qualifying spot to the NCAA Championships.
“We pulled Max out of a redshirt in February, so this is a pretty nice thing for him, to qualify as a true freshman,” said 14th year Lehigh head coach Pat Santoro. “He’s going to be good. He’s only going to get better. We wouldn’t have asked him to come out of his redshirt if he wasn’t ready, and he’s done a great job.”
Brignola (18-6) is the No. 22 seed at 149 and will take on No. 11 Bryce Andonian of Virginia Tech in Thursday’s opening round.
“They are both really explosive guys, so it should be a pretty good match,” Santoro said.
Brignola feels no pressure at his first nationals as a true freshman taking on a higher seed.
“I’m just looking forward to letting it fly and wrestling to the best of my ability,” he said. “I’m super excited, not really nervous.”
Brignola, from Rumson-Fair Haven High School in New Jersey, placed eighth at 145 at New Jersey states as a junior, and fourth at 152 as a senior.
He sees more structure with college wrestling compared to high school, with more training time and more focus on proper nutrition.
He is Lehigh’s first true freshman qualifier since Jordan Humphreys (the No. 7 seed at 157) in 2019, and the ninth true freshman to qualify in Santoro’s
tenure at Lehigh. He is 3-4 against NCAA qualifiers, with three of those losses to Penn’s Artalona.
He said there was a big difference in mental preparation coming out of the redshirt, where he mainly focused on wrestling in open tournaments, taking firsts at Mat Town and the GMU Patriot Open, and fifth at the Illinois Matmen.
“The opens were kind of mellow and chill,” he said of his state of mind. “The first varsity match was pretty surreal with a big, loud crowd that I got to wrestle in front of at Grace Hall.”
A finance major, Brignola credits his dad, Chris, for motivation. Chris Brignola never wrestled, but played basketball. Tyler, Max’s twin, was wrestling at Gardner Webb University but lost his spot for the postseason.
Top seeds
The Mountain Hawks saw an 11-year streak of earning at least one All-American spot end last season, and are looking to start a new streak this year.
Lehigh heavyweight Jordan Wood, a sixth-year senior, is coming off an historic EIWA tournament where he became the storied tournament’s first-ever five-time champion. Wood, from Gilbertsville and Boyertown High School, is the No. 6 seed at 285 and will meet No. 27 Michael Wolfram of West Virginia in Thursday’s opening round.
Wood is 22-2 on the season with his losses coming at the hands of No. 3 seed Tony Cassioppi of Iowa (3-2 decision) and No. 2 seed Cohlton Schultz of Arizona State (4-2 in tiebreaker). Both wrestlers are in Wood’s half of the bracket, and Wood could meet Cassiopi in the quarterfinals and Schultz in the semifinals if everything works out.
Humphreys, with junior eligibility, is the No. 7 seed at 159. He finished third at the EIWA’s after giving up a defensive pin to Navy sophomore Andrew Cerniglia (Notre Dame-Green Pond) in the semifinals.
Humphreys is scheduled to take on Lock Haven’s Ben Barton, the No. 26 seed, in the opening round. Cerniglia, who picked up the 18th seed, is taking on No. 15 Johnny Lovett of Central Michigan and could meet Humphreys again in the Friday quarterfinal round.
Lehigh’s Malyke Hynes, No. 27 at 133, opens up against No. 6 Dylan Ragusin of Michigan.
Connor McGonagle, No. 28 at 141, will take on No. 4 Real Woods of Stanford, who is now coached by former Cornell head coach Rob Koll.
At 165, Lehigh No. 17 seed Brian Meyer will take on the winner of the pigtail bout between No. 32 David Ferrante of Northwestern and No. 33 Matthrew Olguin of Oregon State.
At 184, Lehigh’s No. 31 A.J. Burkhart kicks off against No. 2 Aaron Brooks of Penn State.
Santoro, a two-time NCAA champion when he was at the University of Pittsburgh, is hoping his wrestlers treat the national tournament as just another step in training.
“A lot of people underestimate the amount of effort it takes to train for the national tournament,” he said. “And they overestimate the tournament. When they get there, they make it a bigger deal than it is. Basically you have got to do what you do every day and don’t make it a bigger deal. Put yourself in the best positions. That’s how you win at nationals.”
Lehigh Valley seeds
Nazareth’s Sammy Sasso, a junior at Ohio State, is the No. 4 seed at 149 and the returning runner-up.
Mikey Labriola, a junior at Nebraska from Bethlehem Catholic, is the No. 9 seed at 174 and was third at nationals in 2021, sixth in 2019. Former Easton and Nebraska standout Bryan Snyder is the associate head coach at Nebraska.