Wrestling Posts Exciting Wins Over Ranked Opponents Hofstra, Lehigh

The glamour sporting events this weekend at Harvard may have been the women's basketball games where Allison Feaster was achieving another statistical milestone to further show that she is the best player in Ivy League History.

However, while the Crimson cagers were defeating Brown and Yale and Feaster was getting her record, the Harvard wrestling team was involved in two of the most dramatic Harvard triumphs in recent memory in any sport.

On Friday night the Crimson--ranked 27th in the last national poll--took out No. 25 Hofstra with a victory in the night's final match. Saturday evening, Harvard stopped Lehigh--ranked 21st in the nation.

In both matches, senior heavyweight Rob Durbin found himself in position to be the hero--and delivered.

HARVARD 18, HOFSTRA 15

This match couldn't have been much closer.

The momentum and the score swung back and forth throughout the match. Hofstra jumped out to an early 6-0 lead after the 118- and 126- pound weight classes, and things were off to a bad start.

"Coach went down the line after the first two matches saying that we can get those back and to take it one match at a time," junior Ed Mosley said. "We believed we could come back, it was just another bump in the road."

Junior Dustin DeNunzio put the Crimson on the board with a tight 7-6 decision over Eric Schmiesing in the 134-pound match.

Harvard looked to be in bad shape heading into the 150-pound match, down 9-3. But the Crimson won the next four matches, capped off by sophomore Francis Volpe's 11-4 victory over Hofstra's Russell Jones--the 16th-ranked wrestler in the nation--in the 177-pound match.

At that point, with the crowd at a frenzied peak and holding a commanding 15-9 lead, Harvard had swung the pendulum in its favor and looked ready to upset the 22nd-ranked team in the nation.

Unfortunately, in the 190-pound match-up. Hofstra's Mike Quaglio pinned freshman Brad Soltis 2:12 into their match. A match won by pin earns the team six points, instead of the three awarded by decision; so the score was then knotted at 15-15.

"He's young, and you make mistakes. He's gotta take his lumps," Mosley said. "Getting pinned is tough for a team, but we responded well and the team's spirit stayed up."

The stage was set for Durbin's heroics. Wrestling this night at the heavyweight level, Durbin used his superior quickness to earn a 10-5 decision over Hofstra's Anthony Casciano in the final match. The senior's victory and three points gave Harvard the win, 18-15.

"Rob wrestled out of his mind," Mosely said. "He got behind early but kept believing and pulled something off. He did everything we wanted."

HARVARD 21, LEHIGH 17

Unlike the previous night, Harvard got off to a quick start on Saturday against No. 21 Lehigh.

The match had an added sense of importance because of the Pennsylvania allegiances of the Harvard program.

"A lot of our guys and our coaches are from Pennsylvania, and they grew up idolizing Lehigh wrestlers," Mosley said. "We've wrestled them in tournaments, and they've always beaten us."

At the 118-pound weight class, senior James Butera went into overtime but pulled out a 5-3 decision. After freshman Matt Picarsic won his match by injury default--earning six points for Harvard--the Crimson held a commanding 9-0 lead.

But, just as in the previous night's match, the team that was down went on a roll. Lehigh ripped off three straight victories, including a major decision--worth four points-- in the 150-pound weight class, to take 1 10-9 lead.

Sophomore Joey Killar's 5-2 decision over Travis Doto broke the streak for the Crimson, and Harvard regained the lead.

The big win from Harvard's standpoint came from Mosley at the 167-pound weight class. Perhaps Harvard's most impressive wrestler, Mosely put a big hurt in the Engineer's Mark Dufrense, pinning him at 1:50 in the second period and earning the Crimson a crucial six points.

"I've had a long slump," Mosley said. "I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what was wrong. Something clicked this weekend and it was a real boost in the arm. It was disappointing not to be wrestling up to my potential, but I feel that I am over the hump."

Mosley's win put Harvard ahead 18-10, but Volpe could not hold off Lehigh's John Van Doren and dropped a 6-3 decision.

So, as Rob Durbin stepped onto the mat for the second-to-last match of the night--this time he was wrestling at the 190-pound class--Harvard looked to be in a good position, ahead 18-13. However, things weren't so simple.

Lehigh features Bill Closson at the heavyweight level. Closson is what you might call an unstoppable force, and Harvard had fundamentally conceded the heavyweight match to him.

"Closson's a very good, very experienced wrestler," Mosley said. "We didn't have anyone prepared to beat him , so our goal was to win the meet before the heavyweight match."

Therefore, if Harvard wanted the upset, Durbin had to get the job done.

As the match was winding down, things did not look so good. Durbin was behind, but was in line for a riding point when the match ended that effectively tied the score. As he stayed atop Lehigh's Clauco Lolli-Ghetti with the time dwindling in the match, overtime seemed inevitable.

But, shockingly, Lolli-Ghetti escaped from Durbin's grasp, earning two points for a 6-3 lead and seemingly putting Durbin, and Harvard, away with a mere four seconds left.

"Rob kept after it and somehow managed to get behind him," Mosely said.

With a second left, or maybe no seconds left, Durbin took his opponent down and won the match 7-6. Or did he?

When the buzzer went off, the referee had not signalled the two-point takedown for Durbin. The Engineers' coach protested, arguing that the take-down had occurred after the match had ended and that Lolli-Ghetti had won.

The officials conferenced as the boisterous Harvard crowd chanted for the two points it felt Durbin deserved. After five minutes of discussion, the referee thrust two fingers into the air signalling Durbin's takedown.

The deuce, combined with the point for riding, gave Durbin a 7-6 decision and Harvard an insurmountable 21-13 lead.

Closson, surprisingly, did not pin freshman Scott Smider in the heavyweight match, but his major decision brought the final score to 21-17, Harvard.

"Smider's a tough kid who wrestled really well and stayed off his back. Once he gets the mat time, he'll be able to beat people like Closson," Mosley said.

For the Harvard team, it was a weekend with mixed results.

"Our goals did not involve beating Hofstra and Lehigh, but they do involve winning the Ivys and Easterns," said Mosley. "We're doing well right now. But our 134 and 177 wrestlers did not win against Lehigh. Our 134 is third in the nation but got upset. However, it is great when we lose some of those matches but can come together and win a match."

"We didn't wrestle our best. I'll say we wrestled our best when we place in the top ten in the National Tournament."

Whether it was Harvard's best or not, for a troubled sport of late, this weekend's matches showed what glory this old sport can still bring. A spectator would be hard-pressed to see a more dramatic and exciting pair of victories than those earned by the Harvard wrestlers this weekend.