Princeton University Athletics
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Following Historic Penn Win, Wrestling Hits The Road For Crucial Ivy Pair
February 05, 2016 | Wrestling
As soon as Pat D'Arcy fended off any final takedown attempts and Princeton clinched its first win over Penn in 25 attempts, Tiger fans allowed themselves to dream about the possibilities of an Ivy championship match with the league's preeminent power, Cornell, over the last decade.
Head coach Chris Ayres and his Princeton wrestling team would love to make that dream a reality, but they understood the path there would take a challenging route through New England this weekend. Thus, the only two Ivy League teams they thought about this weekend were Harvard and Brown.
The Tigers will head up to Boston to begin their weekend with a 1 pm Saturday showdown against the Harvard Crimson. On Super Sunday, they will take on Brown at 1 pm, and then compete at EIWA rival Sacred Heart at 6 pm. Both the Harvard and Brown matches will be streamed live on the Ivy League Digital Network.
Princeton (4-6, 1-0 Ivy League) is coming off Saturday's 19-15 win over Penn, a victory that came from a 10-0 run to end the match. Harvard (5-2, 1-0 Ivy) has won three straight matches heading into the weekend, while Brown (3-6, 0-2) has won three of its last four.
SCOUTING PRINCETON
Ayres was thrilled to welcome back two of his veterans, Chris Perez (149) and Adam Krop (157), to the lineup last weekend. While Perez already has two early-season wins over Top 20 opponents, Krop picked up a big one against Penn with a 10-5 victory over 20th-ranked May Bethea.
Princeton is still led by its Top-20 duo of Brett Harner (11th, 197) and Jonathan Schleifer (16th, 174), though two unranked upperclassmen have been particularly strong recently.
Heavyweight Ray O'Donnell, who had a critical 6-1 win during the Penn comeback, has won nine of his last 13 matches (including a 2-2 mark against Top-20 opponents), and needs only two wins this weekend to reach the 20-win mark. Senior Judd Ziegler (165) has 16 wins on the year, including a 5-3 victory over Penn's Brooks Martino, and he has gone 7-2 against unranked opponents since the Grapple at the Garden.
Ziegler would love nothing more than to get his first Top 20 win of the season this Saturday, which brings us to …
SCOUTING HARVARD
The Crimson have two Top-20 wrestlers entering the weekend. Senior Todd Preston is ranked ninth at 141 and was the 2014 EIWA champion at the weight. Preston and Princeton's Jordan Laster seemed poised for a 2015 EIWA semifinal showdown at Lehigh, but Preston suffered a quarterfinal injury that unfortunately ended his season. Laster does have one Top 20 win this season (Nebraska's Antony Abidin), but he has two close losses to Preston in the last two duals, including a 3-1 overtime loss in 2014.
Junior Devon Gobbo is currently ranked 20th at 165, the same weight as Ziegler.
SCOUTING BROWN
The Bears lost a heartbreaking 16-15 decision to Columbia earlier this month on criteria; the Lions recorded a higher number of total match points, 47-46. One takedown was enough to keep Brown from entering the weekend with a 1-1 league mark, so they will be a hungry opponent Sunday. They have been led this season by 20th-ranked Justin Staudenmayer, a likely opponent for Krop at 157 this weekend.
SCOUTING SACRED HEART
The Pioneers (1-7) are in the capable hands of head coach Andy Lausier, a former Tiger assistant who helped pave the way for Princeton's revival over the last decade. Lausier has already helped Conan Schuster become the second wrestler in program history to place at the EIWA Championships.