Dillon, Sahl win on senior day at Grace

Bethlehem, PA – Lehigh extended its winning streak to eight straight matches with a convincing 26-16 victory over North Carolina State on Saturday afternoon at Grace Hall. With the win the Mountain Hawks improve to 20-3 for the season. North Carolina State falls to 7-4.

Senior Brad Dillon extended his school record-setting win total to 40 straight matches with a major decision over Rick Brownlee, 21-8. It was the second straight major decision win for Dillon, who earlier in the day defeated Michael Grogan of Virginia. Freshman Matt Cassidy also won two matches on Saturday. He defeated Zach Garren of North Carolina State 7-3. Earlier he recorded his second fall of the season defeating Kevin Collier of Virginia in 4:31.

At heavyweight senior Joe Sahl returned to Grace Hall action and defeated Jainor Plama of NC State 7-3, closing out his Mountain Hawk career with the win. Freshman Matt Ciasulli was a double winner on the day. He defeated Garret Cummings of NC State 18-6 after earlier defeating Daniel Pacitti of Virginia. Lehigh won two matches by forfeit as Derek Zinck (157) and Travis Frick (184) recorded wins. With the wins over NC State and Virginia Lehigh improved to 9-0-1 allt-im against the two schools.

“This was a tough weekend for the guys,” said Lehigh head coach Greg Strobel, “but it was good preparation for the upcoming EIWA’s and on after that. It was really nice to see Joe Sahl get a win in his last time out, and I wish Mario could have done the same, but he faced a tough local kid in Hartrum. But overall, I couldn’t be happier with the way the weekend went.”

Lehigh will return to the mat on Sunday February 15th with a trip down to Stillwater, OK, to take on the top-ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys. The match is set to begin at 2:00, with radio coverage beginning 15 minutes beforehand on 1230/1160 WEEX and on Lehigh’s website at www.lehighsports.com.

Lehigh 26 – North Carolina State 16