Annual Lehigh wrestle-offs set for Friday night
10/28/2009 5:00:00 PM | Men's Wrestling
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BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Lehigh fans will get their first look at the 2009-10 Mountain Hawks Friday night with the annual wrestle-offs held inside Leeman-Turner Arena at Grace Hall. Head coach Pat Santoro has lined up a slate of 11 matches to kick off the 101st season of Lehigh wrestling as the Brown and White will take to the mat in preparation for the season opener November 8 against Rider.
“Wrestle-offs are always difficult for the guys because you want to be intense and aggressive,” said Santoro, who begins his second season as head coach. “It’s tough for the guys to wrestle against teammates and friends. The important thing for our wrestlers is that they’ve worked so hard in the preseason. As coaches, we want to see them go out and just let it fly. We want to see them score points and be aggressive and opportunistic.”
The lineup features nine returning starters from last season and six NCAA tournament qualifiers from a year ago. Three bouts will be rematches from last year as sophomore John McDonald squares off against junior Mitch Berger at 125 and junior Alex Caruso meets deferred freshman Robert Hamlin at 174. At heavyweight, sophomore Zach Rey will meet slimmed down senior Justin Allen.
One of the more competitive battles in the preseason has been at 149, where as many as eight grapplers have challenged for the starting spot. The official starter likely will not be determined until next week, but Friday night sophomore Brian Tanen will meet true freshman Joey Napoli in the official wrestle-off at 149, while junior Kyle Rosser will meet deferred freshman Justin Koren in an exhibition bout. In addition, two other members of Lehigh’s true freshman class will compete as freshman Albert Woody will meet EIWA Champion Seth Ciasulli at 141 and Austin Meys will wrestle an exhibition bout against senior Mike Galante at 165.
Santoro also indicated that one or two more exhibition bouts may be added to the slate.
“The other important thing is to have the guys get their weight down and to get them in front of a crowd, with an official,” said Santoro. “We’ve seen what they can do in the room, now we can see how they perform in competition.”
The wrestle-offs get underway at 7 p.m. Friday from Leeman-Turner Arena at Grace Hall. Tickets are still available and can be purchased by calling 610-7LU-GAME or by visiting the Lehigh ticket office, located in Grace Hall. For those unable to make it to Grace Hall on Friday, the wrestle-offs can be seen both live and on-demand at Lehighsports.com, with Lehigh wrestling historian Denny Diehl ’70 joining Steve Lomangino for the commentary.
Friday’s probable match-ups:
|
Weight |
Brown |
vs. |
White |
|
125 |
vs. |
||
|
133 |
vs. |
||
|
141 |
vs. |
||
|
149 |
vs. |
||
|
149 EX |
vs. |
||
|
157 |
vs. |
||
|
165 EX |
vs. |
||
|
174 |
vs. |
||
|
184 |
vs. |
||
|
197 |
vs. |
||
|
285 |
vs. |
