Wrestlers Place Ninth at Cliff Keen Tourney

In the city that champions the all-you-can-eat buffet, the Harvard wrestlers bit off more than they could chew this weekend.

The Crimson wrestling team finished in ninth place at the prestigious Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational Tournament.

Although Harvard garnered a respectable finish in an extremely competitive field of 43 schools, a few of its members wished they could have come home with the jackpot. The team's strong sixth-place finish at the tournament last year and this season's capture of the Ivy Kickoff Championship in mid-November had left the Crimson with high hopes for this weekend.

"[The tournament] was a disappointment for us," said sophomore Kevin El-Hayek. "We lost a lot of overtime matches, and that really hurt us in the end. We're a good team, so a ninth-place finish is a little disappointing, especially since we did so well last year. But it's still early in the year, so hopefully we'll do better at the rest of the tournaments."

Harvard's downfall this weekend was its inability to close out overtime matches, which had been the key to the Crimson's success at last year's tournament. Junior Joe Killar and senior tri-captain Dustin DeNunzio were both downed in extremely close overtime matches, finishing third and sixth in their respective weight divisions. Last year, the Crimson had been able to garner eight overtime victories.

"I think that as a team, we did a little better than we did last year because we had six wrestlers in the top eight," Killar said. "It was just that some individuals didn't do as well this year as they did last year."

Several Harvard wrestlers performed exceptionally well for the team this weekend. In the 157-pound division, junior Kevin Kurtz continued his success this season by placing third. Earlier in the year, Kurtz won his weight division at the Ivy Kickoff tournament and was named the tournament's Outstanding Wrestler. This weekend he chalked up an impressive 6-1 record.

"We didn't wrestle as well as we should have this weekend," Kurtz said. "But the tournament was a big step up for us, so it wasn't a big disappointment."

In the 165-pound division, Killar captured third place after missing the final round of his last tournament. At the East Strousburg Tournament in late November, Killar had finished third in his division but had to forfeit his final match because of an infection. This weekend he was downed in an overtime match during the semifinals.

"I just got caught for stalling during overtime, and I think that it was just a bad call by the referee," Killar said.

In the 149-pound division, senior tri-captain Joel Friedman, returning after taking last year off, finished fourth. Friedman was a 1996 NCAA qualifier and placed fourth in the EIWA his junior year.

In the 133-pound division, sophomore Matt Picarsic captured sixth place after finishing with a 5-3 record.

"I think that we may not have done as well as we wanted to, but a few individuals did really well for us, and it's still early in the season," Picarsic said. "It's hard to pinpoint the one or two things that may have hurt us this weekend. {The tournament] proved that we still have room for improvement, but it also shows that we're definitely on the right track."

DeNunzio captured sixth place in the 141-pound class after losing a close overtime match. Last year DeNunzio became the first Harvard All-American wrestler in 15 years and the seventh in Harvard history by capturing sixth place at the NCAA Tournament. This year he accumulated a 3-3 record for the tournament.

"I didn't have a good weekend, but a lot of our people looked really good," DeNunzio said. "We took a lot of people with us for the first time, so they were still trying to get used to [tournaments] and adjusting to different circumstances. But we still proved that we can compete on the national level."

Junior tri-captain Fran Volpe placed eighth in the 184-pound division. He finished with a 3-3 record for the tournament after placing fifth at last year's Las Vegas Invitational.

"I'm really proud of the guys who did well for us at the tournament," Volpe said. "Kevin Kurtz and Joel Friedman did really well, and both Joey Killar and Dustin DeNunzio lost extremely close matches in overtime. But on the whole, this really wasn't one of our better tournaments, and we're hoping to do better next time."

The Harvard wrestlers will next compete in the Aloha Classic during the first week of January.