Lehigh University
NCAA Finals
Three Mountain Hawks claim third place at NCAA's
3/19/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Wrestling
St. Louis, MO – Lehigh bounced back from a rough couple of days at the 2005 NCAA Championships at Savvis Center, winning all six matches on Saturday morning and coming away with a trio of All-Americans, all of whom placed third in their respective weight classes. Cory Cooperman, Troy Letters and Jon Trenge all took home third place finishes to propel the Mountain Hawks into the eighth place after the morning session.
"As I look back on the brackets, every single one of our matches was winnable," said Lehigh head coach Greg Strobel. "We were just a step slow on Thursday and a step slow on Friday. But I am really proud of the way our guys wrestled today."
Cooperman continued his impressive run through the wrestlebacks with a pin over Michael Keefe of At 165 pounds Letters, a three-time All-American bounced back from his upset loss in last night’s semifinals with a pair of decisions, 7-1 over Jon Sioredas of Chattanooga in the consolation semis, then 7-5 over Ryan Churella to take third place. Letters how has finished second, first and third in three championship appearances. The final Lehigh grappler to take the mat this season was Trenge, who picked up two major decisions en route to a third place finish at 197. Trenge took out Wynn Michalak of Central Michigan 11-3, then bested Joel Flaggert of Oklahoma 12-1 to claim a third place finish to go with a pair of previous runner up finishes. After the third place bout Trenge symbolically took off his shoes and left them in the center of the mat, signifying his retirement from competition. Trenge will leave Lehigh with 133 victories, the most in team history. "[Jon] was capable of winning any of the four years he was here," Strobel explained. "He wasn't as focused as he needed to be [Friday night], but he learned from that and rebounded well." After finishing last night in tenth place, Lehigh jumped to eighth in the team standings with 60 points. The 75th NCAA Division I Championships conclude on Saturday evening with the national finals. Session VI gets underway at 5:00 pm EST from inside SCENES FROM ST. LOUIS … Lehigh is one of four schools providing audio coverage from the 2005 NCAA Division I wrestling championships. Radio broadcast crews from Oklahoma State, Iowa, and Penn State are also on hand … Lehigh wrestling fans inside Savvis Center may have also noticed a couple of familiar faces wearing the gray NCAA referee’s jerseys. Gary Kessel of East Stroudsburg and Wyoming, Pa.’s Joe Bartell – who both called matches inside Leeman-Turner Arena at Grace Hall this season – are among 20 referees on hand in St. Louis. In all, five of the 20 officials here reside in 2005 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships – Top Ten Team Scores Through Session V Team Score 1. 133.0 2. 79.0 3. 73.5 4t. 72.5 4t. Cornell 72.5 6. 70.5 7. 66.0 8. LEHIGH 60.0 9. 57.0 10. 54.5 Lehigh individual results – Session V Consolation Bracket Semifinals Weight Match-up Result Score 141 Cory Cooperman (Lehigh) WBF Michael Keefe ( 4:52 165 Troy Letters (Lehigh) dec. Jon Sioredas ( 7-1 197 Jon Trenge (Lehigh) maj. dec. Wynn Michalak ( 11-3
Lehigh individual results – Session V Consolation Bracket Third Place Matches
Weight | Match-up | Result | Score | |
141 | Cory Cooperman (Lehigh) | maj. dec. | Daniel Frishkorn ( | 10-1 |
165 | Troy Letters (Lehigh) | dec. | Ryan Churella ( | 7-5 |
197 | Jon Trenge (Lehigh) | maj. dec. | Joel Flaggert ( | 12-1 |
Photo © 2005, Lehigh Athletics/Jeff Nolan
