Ivy Opener, Kolodzik-Ashnault Potential Showdown Highlights Huge Wrestling Weekend

LIVE VIDEO LINKS: Harvard l Brown l Rutgers

Super Sunday, indeed.

For most Americans, that phrase will relate to the upcoming Super Bowl, but the wrestling community will have its eyes this Sunday on New Brunswick, N.J., for the potential showdown between the NCAA's top two wrestlers at 149 pounds, Princeton junior Matthew Kolodzik and Rutgers senior Anthony Ashnault.

It's a big one for sure, but it isn't the only important event for the Tigers this weekend.

Princeton has its eyes set on a run at the 2019 Ivy League championship, and that journey begins Saturday afternoon in Dillon Gym, when the Tigers host both Harvard (1 pm) and Brown (5 pm) to get league competition started. If you can't make it to Jadwin (admission is free for both), each of those matches will be streamed live on ESPN+ (see links above).

Princeton has finished as the Ivy League runner-up to Cornell in each of the last three years, but the Tigers had to share that spot with Brown last season after the Bears pulled a 17-15 upset in Providence. Brown enters the weekend with a 4-4 record, and it will take on Penn in Philadelphia earlier Saturday afternoon. The Bears have been led this season by senior Jonathan Viruet, the 18th-ranked wrestler in the nation at 165.

Harvard, which was also swept by Binghamton and Cornell last weekend, will enter the afternoon match with a 1-5 record.

Princeton has three wrestlers currently ranked by InterMat, including the undefeated duo of Kolodzik (#1, 149) and Patrick Brucki (#3, 197). Freshman Patrick Glory (#10, 125) will make his Ivy League debut against Harvard, and he could be joined by as many as four classmates in the starting lineup, each of whom would love nothing more than to get Princeton started on a path to its first Ivy League title since 1986.

The Sunday showdown in New Brunswick may be highlighted by Kolodzik-Ashnault, but it is expected to be include several highly competitive matches throughout the dual. Rutgers currently has three ranked wrestlers listed among its probables, including 2018 NCAA finalist Nick Suriano and 15th-ranked veteran John Van Brill (157).

The two programs came together in recent years to create a B1GIVY Rivalry Trophy for the winner of the match, and since both teams have wins over Rider already, a theoretical New Jersey state championship is also on the line. Rutgers has won 22 straight in this rivalry and holds the all-time advantage 43-33-5 in a series that dates back to 1931, but Princeton has already ended long droughts to both Lehigh and Rider this year, so what could be more charming than a third one this weekend?

Should the Kolodzik-Ashnault showdown take place, it will be the fifth at the collegiate level between the two. Each has won twice so far; Kolodzik wrestled unattached at the 2015 Midlands Championships and split a pair of matches with his Rutgers counterpart; he won 11-4 in the first meeting, then fell 3-2 in wrestlebacks. They met twice during the 2016-17 season, and both in dramatic settings. A late takedown gave Kolodzik a 4-3 win in the "Battle at the Birthplace" dual at HighPoint.com Stadium in November, but Ashnault avenged that with a 6-2 victory in the NCAA Quarterfinals in St. Louis.

Kolodzik and Ashnault are a combined 31-0 this season, and 11-0 against ranked competition; that total doesn't include Kolodzik's win over #6 Mitch Finesilver of Duke during the NWCA All-Star Classic.

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