Wrestling Opens 100th Season with Strong Performance

A lot of things have changed in the past 100 years, but the wrestling program at Harvard has remained the same. The beginning of the 2013-2014 season marked 100 years of Harvard wrestling.

The Crimson opened its centennial season on Sunday at the John Kaloust Bearcat Open at Binghamton University in Binghamton, N.Y. After losing senior co-captains Steven Keith and Walter Peppelman at the end of last season, this year’s team is calling upon some young talent in order to continue its trend of winning seasons.

With seven freshmen joining the squad, the opening match of the season was a chance to become acquainted with the differences between high school and college wrestling.

“The first tournament is always a big shocker, but we had a really strong performance out of some of the young guys,” senior co-captain Cameron Croy said. “A lot of guys really stepped up, which was something not a lot of us were expecting.”

Two of the key contributors were freshmen Eric Morris and Tyler Grimaldi. Grimaldi, who wrestled at 157, advanced to the quarterfinals before being taken down by Cornell’s Brian Realbuto, who has been a national qualifier multiple times in his college career and was ranked No. 13 in the nation in the weight class. After battling the entire match, Grimaldi fell short by one point, 11-10.

“I’m a freshman, and he’s a senior so he has a lot more experience than I do,” Grimaldi said. “I just came out and kept pushing him and pushing him to his breaking point which felt good. That’s definitely a win I’m looking to pick up later in the season.”

Morris came close to finishing in the top three in the 174-pound weight class but fell to Cornell’s Jesse Shanaman, who was ranked No. two in the country in the weight class, in the consolation championship match.

“They’re wrestling at a very high level,” Harvard coach Jay Weiss said. “Now we know where the bar is set…. When it comes to January and February their improvement is going to be huge. I’m more excited about that than how they wrestled today.”

Although Sunday was only open tournament, allowing each team to enter as many wrestlers as it chooses without having points contribute to the overall team score, Weiss believes that the season has started on a positive note.

“These tournaments are different,” Weiss said. “I don’t want to say that results don’t matter, but right now what’s most important is getting guys matches. We don’t look at it as how many guys placed, we look at the performances.”

For Croy, who has seen many of his teammates go through the up and downs of the season over his four years at Harvard, this start is something the team can be proud of.

“We did really well today,” Croy said. “It was the first tournament of the year and overall we had a really strong performance out of a lot of our guys and our key players really came through.”

Sophomore Jeff Ott, who came in second last year when he wrestled at 125 pounds, entered this year’s tournament in the 133-pound weight class. Ott did not repeat the success he found last year as a freshman, and after winning his first two matches of the day, fell to Penn State’s James Gulibon.

Fellow sophomore Devon Gobbo also won his first two matches in the 165-pound weight class.  but Jake Kemerer of Lock Haven was able to defeat Gobbo, 7-6, in the third round of the tournament.

Other key contributors to the team’s performance included Ryan Osleeb, who had two shutout matches in the 141-pound weight class before being defeated by Lehigh’s Will Switzer, 5-1, and Colton Peppelman, who was able to advance to the third round of the 174-pound weight class before losing to Princeton’s Ryan Callahan, 15-0.

A few members of the Crimson sat out of Sunday’s tournament due to injuries. This included senior co-captains James Fox and Cameron Croy.

“Looking at the whole thing, seeing that we haven’t been able to compete since last March, this performance was good for the team,” Weiss said. “The biggest thing we got out of this is that we got a lot better today.”

For Grimaldi and other newcomers to the team, the future holds extensive opportunities to improve.

“This year we have a really great young team that we want to take to a whole new level,” Grimaldi said.