Princeton University Athletics
Wrestlers Finish Seventh at the 2001 EIWA Championship
March 05, 2001 | Wrestling
March 5, 2001
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - Princeton's wrestling team placed seventh out of fourteen teams at the EIWA Championships held March 3-4, at the University of Pennsylvania. Princeton finished with a final team score of 60 points. Harvard's team took the team championships with 123 points winning only two individual weight classes. UPenn took second place, finishing the tournament with 114 points and winning four individual championships. Lehigh University claimed the third spot with 109.5 and one individual weight class championship.
In a tournament with some of the top wrestlers in the nation, the Tigers went out and proved that they can wrestle with the best. Two notable Princeton wrestlers are Juan Venturi and Ryan Bonfiglio, both of which have wrestled great throughout the season and both had an extremely strong showing at the EIWA tournament. Juan Venturi (133 lbs.) beat three opponents to reach the final match against, no. 1 ranked Matt Picarsic from Harvard University. Venturi defeated Ryan Gill of Brown by a technical fall, 18-2 at 4:58 in the first round of the tournament. Venturi went on to defeat Michael Quiroga of Army and Jeremy Weller of Bucknell in subsequent rounds.
In the finals of the 133 lbs. weight class, Venturi lost to Matt Picarsic of Harvard, 13-11 in a tough match that left Venturi finishing second in the tournament. Venturi, who is only a junior, will return next year to have another go at the title.
Senior, Ryan Bonfiglio, entered the tournament ranked 5th amongst his competitors. In the first round of the EIWA tournament, Bonfiglio took out Billy Gation of F&M. He went on to defeat Ryan Fasnacht of Bucknell and Clint Wattenberg of Cornell, who entered the tournament has the top ranking wrestler. Bonfiglio had recently defeated Wattenberg in a dual match at Cornell, Feb. 24, 5-2. Sunday, Bonfigilo took down Wattenberg again, 4-3.
Bonfiglio placed second at the tournament, losing to Tim Ortman of UPenn in the final round of the 165 lbs. weight class, 4-2.
Joe Clarke finished 5th in the 141 weight class after first falling to no. 2, Mark Conley of Navy and then defeating Tom Wysocki of Rutgers, pinning him at 5:38.
Greg Parker, wrestling in the 174 lbs. weight class, finished 3rd in the tournament. Parker, early in the day lost to Mark Newman of Navy 5-3. The two wrestlers met again that day to determine the 3rd spot. Parker won 4-2.
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