Wrestling Finishes 11th at Keystone Classic

The No. 23 Harvard wrestling team traveled to Philadelphia, Penn., to compete Sunday in the Keystone Classic, a tournament that featured 14 of the InterMats top-20 wrestlers in the country.

Harvard finished in 11th place in a field of 15 schools, amassing 46.5 points on the day. Northwestern took home the team title with 156 points.

“It’s so early in the season,” Crimson coach Jay Weiss said. “I’m disappointed [in] how we wrestled, but I also know it also gives us stuff to work on in practice to come back and really figure out where we are as a team.”

Crimson standouts at the tournament included junior Cameron Croy and co-captain Steven Keith, who placed second and third in their respective weight classes.

Harvard competed against EIWA rivals such as American, Brown, Penn, and Princeton. The Crimson also faced opponents from schools across the nation, including N.C. State, Cal Poly, Duke, Virginia Military Institute, and No. 13 Northwestern.

Despite dropping his semifinal matchup to Penn’s Charles Cobb, 4-0, Keith had a strong finish, clinching third place in his weight class.

“[Keith] wrestled a tough bout in the semifinals against [Cobb],” Weiss said. “It was a good battle. He lost that one, but he came back strong and placed third.”

The senior co-captain, seeded No. 1 in the 141-pound weight class, beat out wrestlers from Princeton, Northwestern, and BU to advance to the semifinals.

“As far as my season is going, I’m off to a pretty good start,” Keith said. “There’s definitely some stuff that I need to work on and improve, but it’s still early on in the season.”

Croy snagged a second-place finish in his weight class after defeating Cal Poly’s Sean Dougherty and then falling to Penn’s Canaan Bethea.

Ranked No. 4 in the tournament seedings, Croy had the strongest finish on the Harvard team.

“[Croy] wrestled a very good tournament and lost in a tough overtime bout,” Weiss said. “He just lost a heartbreaker, and I feel sometimes you have to go through those pains to get stronger, so I think that will help him down the road.”

Coming off of a strong second-place finish in his first collegiate tournament last weekend, freshman Jeffrey Ott had another good showing, securing a sixth-place finish in his weight class of 125 pounds. Seeded No. 2 in the tournament, Ott had a first round bye and went on to advance to the semifinals.

In his first match of the Keystone Classic, Ott knocked out Princeton’s Max Rogers, whom the Harvard freshman also defeated in the Binghamton Open.

Ott went on to snag one more victory against Brown’s Vincent Moita.

“[Ott] is definitely going to have a huge impact on the team,” Keith said. “He’s a great wrestler, [but] he’s got some stuff to work on. He has performed really well at tournaments thus far…. He will be a good force.”

The freshman entered the semifinal match against Northwestern’s Dominic Malone, who was seeded No. 6 in the 125-pound weight class. Ott fell to Malone, and failed to enter into the championship match.

“[Ott] wrestled well,” Weiss said. “I feel he’s just making a couple mistakes—basic freshmen mistakes—and the more he wrestles the better he’s going to get.”

The Crimson has now competed in two tournaments. In both, Harvard has struggled with injuries.

“We have a lot of our better guys at home a little banged up, so I can’t really be too frustrated,” Weiss said. “We’ve got some work to do, but we have a little break coming up which is good because we need it.”

The Crimson’s next tournament appearance will be in Las Vegas for the Cliff Keen Collegiate Wrestling Invitation on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.

“We’ll be off for Thanksgiving and be back on Saturday, so this little break will actually help us,” Weiss said. “We did a lot of our work this past week, so hopefully we’ll be fresh going into the next tournament. This will be a big tournament for us in Las Vegas because there are a lot of nationally ranked teams.”