Lehighsports.com

St. Louis, MO – Last year at the NCAAs Lehigh produced four All-Americans and two national runners-up.  So far after the first day, the Mountain Hawks are right on track to at least match that total, as four wrestlers are through to the quarterfinals.

Mario Stuart, looking to repeat his All-American performance from 2001, won his second straight match at 125 over Christian Bowerman from Fresno State, breezing to a 6-2 victory. Earlier in the day Stuart took down No. 4 Tom Clum of Wisconsin 8-2.

Lehigh’s murderers row at 165, 174, and 184 all came through as well, with a bushel of big victories on the day. Troy Letters picked up two major decisions, 16-5 over Cole Pape of Iowa and 13-5 over Jeremy Reitz of Clarion. Brad Dillon was a little sluggish in a 12-8 win over Frances Iorfido of Pitt, but rebounded nicely with a dominant win over Matt Kallai of Cleveland State, taking a major decision 11-2.

At 184, Travis Frick recorded his first pin of the season with a buzzer-beating fall at 6:59 in his first round match with Ed Magrys of Eastern Michigan, then upset No. 7 Matt Pell of Missouri 5-3 to move to the quarters.

Derek Zinck showed no ill-effects from his injury at the EIWAs, beating The Citadel’s Dan Thompson 9-4, but was knocked from the championship bracket in the second round, dropping a very close 2-1 decision to OSU’s Johny Hendricks, to move to the consolation rounds.

Lehigh’s hopes for a title sustained a tough blow at the very beginning, as Cory Cooperman got locked in a cradle and lost by a fall to Michael Martin of Illinois in just 0:26 of the first period. But Cooperman shook off the early defeat, and got back on track with two bonus victories in the wrestlebacks at 141.  In a pigtail match, Cooperman defeated Frank Edgar of Clarion in a 12-3 major decision, then gained a pin of his own in 5:42 over John Manarte from Hofstra.

At 133, Matt Ciasulli won his first match in the pigtail round, 10-3 over David Hoffman of Virginia Tech, but was moved to the wrestlebacks after dropping an 8-1 final to No. 5 Zach Roberson of Iowa State. There, he staged a dramatic comeback, getting a takedown in the third period and the first tiebreak to defeat No. 12 Jordan Webster 4-2 to stay alive.

At 149, Matt Anderson suffered two very close losses, losing 3-1 to Oklahoma’s Jeff Ecklof and 4-2 to Pitt’s Matt Kocher.

After the first day of wrestling, the Mountain Hawks were able to advance seven of their eight into the second day of wrestling, and have a chance to put four All-Americans on the board with victories in Friday morning’s quarterfinals matches.

The third session of wrestling is set to begin at 11:00am ET on Friday morning, with the second round of wrestlebacks and the championship quarterfinals.  A recap of the morning session will be broadcast on Lehigh’s website at 2:00pm, with a live broadcast of the semis Friday night beginning at 7:00, followed by a recap of all the day’s events at 10:00pm.  All the action can be heard on Lehigh’s website at www.lehighsports.com.

Consolation Pigtail Matches

Second Round Matches

First Round Consolations

Pigtail Matches

First Round Matches