Wrestlers split away matches over weekend

Going into the weekend riding a three-match win streak, which included a home rout of Ivy rivals Harvard and Brown last weekend, the wrestling team (9-6, 6-5 Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) split a pair of road matches this weekend. The Tigers took down Columbiaon Fridaynight in New York, but could not maintain their momentumSaturdayafternoon against a strong Rutgers lineup.

Unlike last year, the Tigers did not keep the match close against Columbia, as head coach Chris Ayres’s wrestlers took eight out of ten bouts to blow out Columbia 26-6. Senior 125-pounder Ryan Cash got the Tigers off to a hot start, avenging a loss to Columbia’s Penn Gottfried in the team’s 2014 meeting. After the Lions picked up the win at the 133-pound weight class, the Tigers took control, winning the next seven bouts to solidify their rout. The individual victories included everything from blowouts —major decisions came from sophomore 184-pounder Brett Harner and junior 197-pounder Abram Ayala —to nail biters —freshman 165-pounder Jonathan Schleifer hung on for an exciting 8-7 win in sudden victory.

The Tigers could not repeat their strong performance against in-state rival Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights took the first five bouts to build a 19-0 lead at the halfway point of the match. Despite the lopsided beginning, the Tigers had bright spots in their losses. In his battle against No. 9 Anthony Ashnault, sophomore 141-pounder Jordan Laster scored the first takedown of the match, but an escape and a riding time point for Ashnault solidified a mere 3-2 victory over Laster. Junior 149-pounder Chris Perez also fought well against No. 17 Ken Theobold, but ultimately fell by a narrow 5-3 margin.

Schleifer got the Tigers on the board at 165 pounds when he picked up a major decision over Nick Visicaro. Harner and Ayala soon followed to give the Tigers victories in three of the ten bouts. The final team score was 24-11 in the Scarlet Knights’ favor.

Ayres’s squad was pleased with its performance against Columbia, and despite the loss to Rutgers, saw some bright spots inSaturday’souting, too.

“As far as the weekend goes, we wrestled very tough when we wrestled Columbia,” junior Judd Ziegler said. “When we wrestled Rutgers, I thought we wrestled tough, but there were a few key matches that we didn’t capitalize on, which included mine. Overall, it looks like the team is finally coming out of the rut we were in, because we had been lacking toughness and the fire that we had last year during the dual meet season, and we finally saw that fire this weekend. And it’s the perfect time for it as [EIWA Championships] are coming up.”

“We wrestled well against Columbia, we competed hard and set the tone of the matches across the board,” Perez said. “It was good to go into a hostile environment and come out successful. Against Rutgers I think we wrestled hard, we just didn’t get the results we wanted to in a couple of matches, mine included. We needed points in short time and couldn’t get it done. This next week will be good for little adjustments heading into next weekend against Penn, Rider and Nebraska, and will be good in our preparation for NCAAs. It was a good match to see where we need to make improvements near the end of the year.”

As the Tigers head into their final weekend of the dual season, they will face arguably their staunchest competition of the season. The Tigers will take on RiderFridayevening, which has a lineup that has turned heads this winter. Princeton will then face No. 22 Pennsylvania and No. 12 Nebraskaon Saturday. Despite the challenge before them, the Tigers are hopeful that their recent experience will prepare them well for the weekend.

“I think that we turned a corner beating a tough Columbia team by a great margin, but the loss to Rutgers really showed us that there is still a lot of work to be done,” Schleifer said. “I hope that the weekend ahead of us will truly show what our team is capable of, and how far we have come as we face another set of tough teams.”

The Tigers will take the short drive to Lawrencevilleon Fridayevening for a6 p.m. showdown against Rider. The squad will take on Penn at12 p.m. on Saturdayafternoon in Philadelphia, before returning to Dillon Gymnasium for a7 p.m. meeting against Nebraska.