Corby fights off elimination on day one
PHILADELPHIA — Winning your first match at the NCAA tournament is tough.
Just ask Donny Corby, the sophomore 149-pounder who received a wild card bid into the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. He began Thursday with a 9-0 major decision loss to Kyle Dake of Cornell.
“The first match I actually did wrestle a decent match,” Corby said Thursday evening outside the CMU lockerroom at Wells Fargo Center. “It was little things I didn’t capitalize on — I didn’t get an early takedown. It just didn’t go the way I wanted to.”
Corby, in his first NCAA tournament appearance, could have folded and entered the wrestleback round — the tournament’s consolation bracket — with little to shoot for. After all, he still has his junior and senior years of eligibility remaining.
But he didn’t want to be the only CMU wrestler to make the trip to the City of Brotherly Love and become eliminated after Day 1.
In his second match of the day, against Oklahoma’s Matt Lester, Corby made sure that did not happen. He scored a reversal in the second period to take a 2-0 lead, but Lester came up with a reversal of his own to send the match into overtime.
There, he took a 3-2 on an escape and was able to hold on for a 5-4 decision.
“I went out there and got to my shots a lot, but the guy was scrambling,” Corby said. “It went into overtime, but I felt confident in my conditioning and I got an escape and a quick two."
Head coach Tom Borrelli beckoned his performance to the season he had, in which he finished 23-14 overall, including a 15-6 record in tournaments.
“Even in that (second) match, he was real close to a lot of takedowns,” Borrelli said. “He kept coming, kept battling. That’s kind of the way he’s been all year.”
And, for Corby, that’s just how he likes it.
“The first match loss always sucks, but I want to get rolling and get ready for tomorrow,” he said. “It puts a fire under me.”
Corby will face No. 10 Kurt Kinser (Indiana) in his second wrestleback match. Even despite a loss, his goal is still intact: To become an All-American.
“It obviously was to win it,” Corby said of his goal coming into the tournament. “You always go into it hoping to win. Sometimes you don’t get your first match, but it doesn’t mean I can’t come back. I want to score some points and become an All-American"
