Mountain Hawks set to open season Sunday at UB Open
11/4/2011 2:47:00 PM | Men's Wrestling
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh wrestling team will take to the mats for the first time this season on Sunday when the Mountain Hawks send a contingent of wrestlers to western New York for the Buffalo Open. Approximately 17 Mountain Hawks will take place in the day-long event as head coach Pat Santoro opted to open with a tournament instead of a dual meet while he continues to figure out Lehigh's lineup.
“It will help sort things out a little bit,” Santoro said, “It gives us a number of matches early on, which will help us build our RPI and meet the minimum number of matches at the end of the year. We've always wanted to try and start out with a tournament. We just didn't know which one. I've wanted to go to Buffalo for a number of years. Coach Jim Beichner runs a great tournament, and it finally worked out with our schedules.”
Among the Lehigh contingent that is expected to compete on Sunday are All-Americans Zach Rey and Robert Hamlin, along with senior round of 12 performer Joe Kennedy. A number of veteran grapplers who are looking to crack the lineup will also compete including seniors Kyle Rosser (149), Brian Tanen (157) and Kadeem Samuels (197). Senior Sean Bilodeau, who has been a starter at 157 for most of his Lehigh career, will compete up a weight at 165. In addition many of Lehigh's true freshmen will take to the mats, including Mason Beckman (125), Chris Dinnien (133) and Nathaniel Brown (174). True freshmen Jim Carucci (141), Eric Hess (157), John Bolich (184), Dave Quackenbos (197) and Jack Delia (285) are all expected to compete unattached on Sunday.In addition to tournament host Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Edinboro will join Lehigh in sending a large contingent of wrestlers to Buffalo. The Panthers are especially interesting as Pittsburgh will visit Leeman-Turner Arena at Grace Hall for Lehigh's dual meet opener November 12.
“We have a very nice balance with veterans and newcomers,” Santoro explained. “We're going to see how fast everybody can learn. It's November, and we're getting ready for March. Every competition is getting us ready for the national tournament. We want to have a good performance here and next week versus Pittsburgh and try to keep it going for the rest of the season.”
Action at the UB Open begins Sunday at 10 a.m. from Alumni Arena.
Along with the action at Buffalo, six Mountain Hawks will be competing at the Knight Point Open in Clarion, Pa., a group that includes senior Brandon Hatchett, juniors Alex Abreu, Joey Napoli and Shane Welsh, sophomore Steve Dutton and freshman Anthony Salupo.
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