Wrestling team clinches MAC regular-season championship
The CMU wrestling team earned its revenge against Kent State by winning its 11th regular season Mid-American Conference Championship in 12 years Sunday.
The Chippewas defeated the Golden Flashes 21-13 in Kent, Ohio, a season after Kent State beat the team in Mount Pleasant on Feb. 19, 2009, to snap 10 consecutive regular-season titles.
“I felt like we had a real good chance of winning nine of the 10 weight classes today, and we won seven of the ten,” said coach Tom Borrelli.
The Chippewas started off with two victories, the first coming at 125 with senior No. 9 Matt Steintrager defeating Troy Opfer 5-0.
Then, sophomore No. 7 Scotti Sentes defeated No. 8 Danny Mitcheff 3-2 at 133 pounds in the only bout between ranked opponents.
Borrelli said after the match Friday against Ohio, the staff did not think Sentes would be the one wrestling because of an unspecified injury, but Sentes did not have much doubt in his mind.
“We didn’t even know if we were going to wrestle him,” Borrelli said. “He really wanted to wrestle, and he toughed it out and figured out how to win.”
Early troubles
With a 6-0 lead, things got interesting for Central.
At 141 pounds, senior Conor Beebe was initially given a takedown at the end of the match, which would have given him a 6-5 win. But the assistant referee who had awarded the takedown took it away, giving the win to Chase Skonieczny, 5-4.
“I felt he had the takedown for eight to ten seconds, but they gave him the take down at the buzzer,” Borrelli said. “And then, the assistant referee, who originally said it was a takedown, changed his mind.”
Senior No. 12 Tony D’Alie led the next match 6-2 in the third period before Matt Cathell got on top of D’Alie and pinned him to give KSU a 9-6 lead.
“The guy ended up reversing him on his back and pinning him,” Borrelli said. “He could have very easily let the guy go and wrestle him on his feet and won by three or four points, he just made a mistake.”
The Chippewas then won three of the next four bouts before senior Eric Simaz won 2-1, scoring an escape during the tiebreaker period and riding out Adam Cogar during the next tiebreaker period after neither him nor Cogar could score in the initial overtime.
“I went into it a little too cautious and I didn’t wrestle the match I should have wrestled,” Simaz said. “I feel I am better than that guy and I should be able to get to my shots when I need to.”
Sophomore No. 4 Jarod Trice finished the match with a 4-2 win after scoring a takedown, although Brendan Barlow scored an escape in a tiebreaker period.
