Grapplers Finish Season at Easterns

The Harvard wrestling team reached for the stars and hit the dust in the Eastern Championships at Lehigh this weekend, its final wrestling competition of the season.

Even Peter Pan couldn't have helped. The Crimson landed 13th out of 16 teams in the tournament, but at least it claims a two-place improvement over last year.

Outstanding individual wrestlers make the difference in a tournament situation, versus the usual wellbalanced team needed in dual-meets. The loss of freshman stand-out Sam Cole to a rib injury left the Crimson without a knife.

"Sam couldn't cut the mustard with those ribs," Coach Jim Peckham said.

"I have to assume that he would have qualified for nationals," continued Peckham. "That would have made a big difference for our team."

Tri-Captain Tim Kierstead couldn't wrestle because of a neck injury, and Fred Jenkins nursed a trick knee, poking a few more holes in the Crimson's wings.

Brett Janis (118-Ibs.), Tri-Captain Alex Konovalchik (190-Ibs.), and heavyweight Kelly Flynn all were seeded in the tournament. Janis was seeded eight and Konovalchik and Flynn were both seeded fifth.

Konovalchik hit a star for Harvard, reaching fourth place in the tournament, one place away from qualifying for nationals.

He won his first two bouts, 2-0 and 2-1, before getting pinned in the final seconds of the second period of his semifinal match. In the wrestlebacks he buried his Rutgers opponent, 5-2, but had third place snatched from him by a Navy wrestler, 5-3.

"I had lost to the guy from Rutgers earlier in the season," Konovalchik said. "He beat me on conditioning at the Coast Guard tournament, and I beat him on conditioning this weekend."

Welcome to conditioning.

"I think it's a measure of how much I've improved over the season," Konovalchik continued. "But I would have loved to have gone to the nationals. It would have been a privilege."

Heavyweight Flynn also represented the Crimson with a stellar performance, coming in sixth in his weight class.

Flynn sailed through the first round with a bye and then lost to a first-seeded Wilkes opponent. He climbed over a Rutgers man, 3-1, and a Navy wrestler, 5-2, in overtime. But close losses to a Cornell grappler and the same Wilkes wrestler held Flynn down to sixth.

At 126-Ibs., Tod Cameron had the tough job of filling Cole's wrestling shoes. He dropped two matches, but flew home with a 9-6 win over a Wilkes' wrestler.

"I have to give a lot of credit to Tod Cameron," Peckham said. "We called him at a quarter to midnight on Tuesday night and told him to get his butt down to the gym and lose 15 Ibs. so he could wrestle at 126. His efforts saved the team five penalty points."

David George won the Most Frustrated Player Award when he fell to his Princeton opponent in overtime by one point and to a Yale competitor in an agonizing 2-1 bout.

"The wrestling program is a program of destiny," said Peckham. "We need help in a lot of ways but I truly believe we will wrestle better and do better next year."