By Betsy Veysman

Nick Gwiazdowski picked right up where he left off.  The Binghamton freshman went undefeated as a high senior, winning all of his contested matched by pin.  So it wasn’t too surprising when his first college bout ended in a fall over Adam Barnett of George Mason.  For good measure, Gwiazdowski pinned his next opponent, Princeton’s Charles Fox, in the first round of the Binghamton Open the following day.  The heavyweight then went on to take the tournament title with a 4-0 performance, including, fittingly, a fall in the finals.

“Honestly, we expected success from Nick right away,” said Bearcats head coach Pat Popolizio. “I’ve known him for a long time and knew his personality and attitude. He’s a true competitor who loves the sport and puts the necessary time and hard work into it.”

Gwiazdowski, on the other hand, was a little surprised by the smooth transition.

“Before my first competition, I wasn’t sure what to expect,” he said. “The coaches were pretty confident in what I could do, but I wasn’t as confident.  But then after the Binghamton Open, I felt like it wasn’t such a big jump from high school.  I felt like I could do really well.”

The Duanesburg High product has continued his successful rookie campaign, amassing a 17-4 record, including nine bonus point victories (with six pins).   He upset Mike McClure of Michigan State, who was the fifth seed, in the opening round of the Reno Tournament of Champions and has registered other quality wins over Purdue’s Roger Vukobratovich and Eastern Michigan’s Wes Schroeder.   He also took advantage of the opportunity to avenge his last high school loss by defeating Oklahoma’s Kyle Colling in a January dual meet and he nearly led his team to an upset of Cornell on Sunday when his major decision over the Big Red’s Maciej Jochym tied the dual score.  (Cornell won on criteria).

But the focus for Gwiazdowski, currently ranked 12^th nationally by theopenmat.com, is not on his wins.  Three of his four losses this year have come to All-Americans, Levi Cooper of Arizona State (twice) and Alan Gelogaev of Oklahoma State.  His other setback was against Drexel’s Kyle Frey.  The two-time New York state champion is quick to recall his mistakes in those defeats, including some positioning errors and getting extended on shots. But he believes there is one thing he really needs to do to step up his game as the campaign progresses.

“The biggest thing for me right now is to ignore the name of the other guy and what singlet he’s wearing,” he said.  “It’s just wrestling.  There are no secret moves out there.  I made the mistake of thinking about whether I could beat the guy in front of me in the middle of those matches.  I know I just need to forget about who the opponent is and wrestle my match.“

Popolizio agreed. “Nick wrestled differently against those guys.  He was a little hesitant on his shots.  He gave them too much respect. If he doesn’t question his ability, but just goes out there and is aggressive and puts it on the line, he can make a lot of noise this year.”

Gwiazdowski, who weighs between 235 and 240 pounds, began the season with goals he now thinks were too conservative.  At this stage, he and his coach firmly believe he can be an All-American in St. Louis in March.

“A good thing about Nick is that he soaks everything up, comes back and works on any mistakes he makes,” Popolizio said. “He has a lot of hidden strength.  He’s not the biggest heavyweight, but he has great speed and conditioning.   It’s also very important that he wrestles harder as the match goes along.  All of those things combined make him a real candidate to make the podium.”

Ultimately, Popolizio believes the 2011 Junior Wade Schalles Award Winner as the nation’s best high school pinner can not only make the podium, but stand on top of it as an NCAA champion.  In fact, discussions about a national title factored heavily during the recruiting process.

Gwiazdowski admitted that the proximity to home and his familiarity with the coaching staff played key roles in his decision to join the Bearcats. But there was also something else that drew him to Binghamton.

“We’re looking for our first national champion here,” Popolizio said. “Nick could have gone to almost any program he wanted to, but he was excited about the prospect of being our first national champion.”

“That definitely was important in my decision,” Gwiazdowski agreed, adding he was also looking at Penn State and Lehigh. “Being an All-American or a national champion at a lot of other schools isn’t such a big deal; it’s been done so many times before.  But doing those things here on a team that is doing the right things and moving up the ladder was a really exciting opportunity.”

Gwiazdowski is hoping there’s more excitement to come in March.

By Betsy Veysman

Binghamton came within one second of beating #9 Oklahoma earlier this week when 197-pounder Cody Reed couldn’t quite secure the winning takedown as time expired against Keldrick Hall in a 20-15 dual loss.  The Bearcats came even closer on Sunday night to defeating a highly ranked opponent when they lost a 22-21 decision to #4 Cornell on tiebreakers in a televised meet at the Events Center in Vestal, New York.

When Binghamton heavyweight Nick Gwiazdowski earned a 15-3 major over Big Red senior Maciej Jochym in the final bout of the evening, the dual score stood at 21-21.  The two squads were even on bouts won (5) and total combined falls and technical falls (2), so the deadlock was broken on the third tiebreaker, total match points.  Cornell tallied 80 points to Binghamton’s 71.

“That was more stressful than we hoped,” said Cornell head coach Rob Koll a few hours after the event ended. “We didn’t think we matched up particularly well with them and they’re a good team, so we knew it would be close.”

The squads traded decisions in the first three bouts of the evening, with Frank Perrelli and Mike Nevinger notching seven-point wins for the Big Red and Bearcat Patrick Hunter picking up a 10-7 victory over Cornell freshman Nik Pena at 133.

“We thought we gave up some points at the first few weights that we were counting on,” Koll said. ”We gave away the major at 125 with no time on the clock when they were credited with an escape and then couldn’t quite get the major at 141. Nik got headlocked in his match early on and had a deep hole to climb out of at 133. He gave everything he had to come back but he couldn’t quite pull it off.”

The home team then captured momentum in front of a crowd of over 1,000 with a pair of bonus point wins.  Fourth ranked Donnie Vinson earned a technical fall over Chris Villalonga at 149 before eighth ranked Justin Lister beat Craig Eifert by fall at 157 for a 14-6 Bearcat lead at the intermission.

“Chris gave up the tech at the buzzer.  We can’t give up those types of points,” Koll said. “After that tech and pin, we thought we were in trouble.”

So it was time to turn to two-time national champion Kyle Dake, who sat out of the Big Red’s two victories on Saturday due to an injury.  With his team needing a big victory, he came off the bench at 165 to pin Joe Chamish in the third period to cut the deficit to 14-12.

“We didn’t really want to wrestle Kyle,” Koll said. “But we didn’t want to lose either.”

At 174, in a matchup of two bumped up 165 pounders, Matt Kaylor downed Marshall Peppelman 8-4 to extend the Binghamton lead to 17-12.  With Binghamton favored at heavyweight, the Big Red needed #3 Steve Bosak and #1 Cam Simaz to win with bonus points.

They delivered.  Bosak put four on the board for the Big Red with an 8-0 major decision over Nate Schiedel and Simaz followed with a 22-6 technical fall over Reed to give the visitors a 21-17 advantage.   The Big Red 197 pounder secured back points with just seconds left in the match to turn a four-point technical fall into a five pointer.

“Once we lost at 74, holy cow,” Koll said.  “Now we have to major a very good kid at 184 and get a tech or a pin at 197 to be comfortable.  But our leaders came through for us today.  Frank [Perrelli] gave up a silly escape at the end to take away a major but he wrestled really well otherwise.  Kyle [Dake] and Cam [Simaz] overcame guys who were stalling so badly to not give up backs or a pin.  Steve [Bosak] majored a good wrestler. What our leaders did was enormous.”

“There were also some other things that were positive, like Pena fighting hard off his back for two minutes. Maciej kept us in the dual although, frankly, he caused me a great deal of angst.  I might have been happier if he just stayed on his belly,” Koll continued with a laugh.

The Big Red lineup had a different look this weekend in the three dual wins over Pennsylvania, Princeton and Binghamton.  Koll expects that to change.

“We need to get everyone back to the right weights and we’ll be a much stronger team,” Koll said. “We also will be adding Nick Arujau to the mix soon. We also expect more from some guys who are too talented to lose the way they did.  They’re great kids off the mat, but they need to be a little greater on the mat.”

Meanwhile, despite their first two dual losses of the year in the matches assistant coach Frank Beasley dubbed “The Clash of the Titans”, the Bearcats showed over the past seven days that they are without a doubt on the rise.  After all, the Big Red beat Binghamton 35-3 in Ithaca a year ago.

“They have some real horses on that team,” Koll said. “They have a really nice team that matched up with us today just right.  It seemed like the perfect storm was there for the upset, but we had just enough to win.”

By Betsy Veysman

Some have said that the Eastern States Classic serves as a preview of the New York State Championships.  Certainly, the tournament features some of the Empire State’s best talent.

The numbers speak for themselves. 12 of the top 20 Division I teams in the state will be at the event along with 7 of the top 20 Division II schools.  More than half of the state semifinalists in Albany last year competed in the event.  Twelve defending state champions will wrestle this weekend along with 17 state silver medalists.

“There are so many great wrestlers at Eastern States,” said Binghamton University head coach Pat Popolizio.  “With so many teams competing, when you win you know you’re at a level where you can compete in college.  Our roster at Binghamton is mostly made up of New York wrestlers and most of the recruits we’ve had have won or placed high at Eastern States.”

This year’s 10^th annual edition, which will take place on January 13 and 14 at Sullivan Community College in Loch Sheldrake, New York should again display top-notch wrestling. Over 100 squads will compete, including representatives from Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  With 580 wrestlers in the field, the action will begin at 10:40 a.m. on the 13^th and will run through approximately 10 p.m. on Friday night.  Wrestling will resume on Saturday morning around 9:15 with medal round bouts scheduled to commence at 4:15 p.m.

With eight placers, Longwood won the team title by 36 points over runner up Shenendehowa in last year’s event, with Fox Lane, Long Beach and Hauppauge rounding out the top five.  Those teams are all back to contend, along with Intermat’s #42 team, Wantagh, which has eight grapplers seeded in the top 16, including #1 at 99 pounds Jose Rodriguez.  Shenendehowa offers seven seeded wrestlers, including two top seeds, Nick Kelley at 132 and Tony Fusco at 195.

The addition of prep power Wyoming Seminary should have an impact on the team race as well.  The Knights won the Bethlehem Holiday Classic and placed fourth and second, respectively, at the very tough Ironman and Beast of the East tournaments.  The Pennsylvania school has four nationally ranked wrestlers in the starting lineup: Dominick Malone (126), Eric Morris (170), AJ Vizzcarando (220) and Michael Johnson (285).  All four are top seeded this weekend, as is Evan Botwin at 120.  Seminary has 13 participants seeded in the top 16 in all.

“We feel adding Wyoming Seminary is a great plus because we get to see how our New York kids stand up against nationally ranked kids,” said Tournament Director Jeff Cuilty. “It’s a chance for some of the New York wrestlers to prove themselves.”

Five wrestlers who proved themselves last January as 2011 Eastern States individual champions return to defend their crowns:

• Travis Passaro stood on top of the podium at 103 a year ago after edging state runner up Mark Raghunandan of Long Beach as the sixth seed. He will have perhaps an even tougher challenge this season as the 11^th seed at 120 pounds, a weight filled with accomplished grapplers, including Jeff O’Lena of East Rochester, Matt Leshinger of Sayville, TJ Fabian of Shoreham Wading River, Justin Corradino of Warwick Valley, Mark West of Hauppauge (the 2010 Easterns States champion at 96 pounds), and Seminary’s Botwin.

• On the other end of the scale, Kacee Saure of Holley, the 285-pound victor, will be back at the same weight.  His challengers will include two of the Empire State’s top heavyweights, Cole Lampman of Shenendehowa and Ethan Stanley of Saugerties as well the top seed, Wyoming Seminary’s Johnson, currently ranked #16 in the country by Intermat.

• The Realbuto family from Somers boasted a pair of Eastern States trophies a year ago, with Dylan Realbuto the winner at 96 pounds and Brian the champion at 135.  After a state runner up finish as a sophomore, Dylan has moved up to the 113 pound class where some of the top opponents will include Raghunandan, Edgemont’s John Aslanian and Amsterdam’s Brandon Lapi.

• Intermat’s #9 overall recruit Brian Realbuto outpointed Holley’s Quinton Murphy in a high scoring 17-12 bout in last season’s finals in a matchup of state champions.  This time, the Cornell-bound Realbuto will have another Eastern States winner in the bracket – Long Beach’s Dylan Palacio.

• Palacio, who took third in New York in 2011 and is ranked in the Top 20 nationally, defeated Wayne’s Tory Cain 2-1 at 145 in the Eastern States title bout.  Besides the two defending champions, the 152-pound weight has some other firepower, including Seminary’s Cohl Fulk, Westfield’s Beau Donahue, Longwood’s Nick Hall, South Lakes’ Ryan Forrest and Super 32 placer John Keck from Shoreham Wading River.

Murphy became the winningest wrester in New York high school history last weekend when he captured the Niagara Frontier Officials Wrestling Tournament to earn his 276^th career triumph.  He has earned many titles during his career, including three state championships, but has taken third and second the last two years at Eastern States.

The Indiana recruit will look to add another crown to his resume at a loaded 138-pound class which includes another second place finisher from the 2011 Eastern States, John Glenn’s James Dekrone as well as former state placers Malik Rasheed of Longwood, Brendan Goldup of LaSalle and Anthony Finocchiaro of Canastota.  Ty White of Wyoming Seminary will also take the mat at the Paul Gerry Fieldhouse, as will a long list of other top Empire State wrestlers including Shenendehowa’s David Almaviva, Westfield’s Derek Arnold, CBA/Jamesville Dewitt’s Aaron Benedict, Hauppauge’s Sam Schwartzapfel, Wantagh’s Dan McDevitt and Fox Lane’s Tom Grippi.

“138 is definitely a class that jumps out as really strong and deep,” Cuilty said. “There will be some great wrestling there.”

The same can be said of the tournament as a whole.

For a full listing of the seeds for the 2011 Eastern States, please follow the link:

http://sectionixwrestling.com/

By Betsy Veysman

“There was so much great wrestling, it was non-stop,” said Izaak Olenjik, a youth wrestler from California.  “It was such a great experience.”

Olenjik, who won his 78-83 pound bracket, was one of 200 youth grapplers who were treated to a day full of high level wrestling on January 8 at Newman Arena on the campus of Cornell University.

The action began with the NYWAY Big Red Kickoff, a tournament for wrestlers ranging from 5 to 14 years old.  Competitors included Olenick’s group of more than 20 from the Golden State as well as wrestlers from Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

“We’re really happy we came out here,” said Zander Silva, a Californian who competed in the 67-82 pound class. “The competition has been very good.  It’s great to get tough matches in against guys you don’t usually wrestle.”

Silva, a Reno Worlds placewinner and Southwest Kickoff Classic champ, was one of the many highly acclaimed youth grapplers on the mats.  Looking around the room, a wrestling fan could see YouTube sensation Stevo Poulin showing his array of moves in the 50-53 pound class for 9/10 year olds along with champion Joseph Manno of New Jersey.  Or a fan could witness Michigan star Devin Schroder, a Super 32 and Grappler Fall Classic Middle School champion, in a triple overtime battle with Durbin Lloren, a Reno Worlds title winner from California, among many other bouts filled with future stars.

“The quality of wrestling was definitely high,” said State NYWAY President Clint Wattenberg, adding that he was hoping for a slightly larger turnout. “The representation from different parts of the country was great.  I saw some of the California kids and some of the best kids in New York take some losses.  These are kids who rarely lose.  Exposing our local wrestlers to wrestlers of this caliber is a really big part of our mission at NYWAY.”

NYWAY is just over six months old, according to Wattenberg, and is now over 2240 members strong.  He believes that the tournament showed glimpses of what the organization will be able to provide.

“The event wasn’t as seamless as we would have hoped,” he said. “But we gave people an understanding of what we’re trying to do to support folkstyle development in the state. We also were able to engage representatives from some of the areas in New York we hadn’t reached yet.”

The highlight of the day for many of the Big Red Kickoff participants was watching #4 Cornell defeat #12 Lehigh 24-12 in a clash of the EIWA’s top two teams in between the morning and afternoon sessions of the tournament.

“Having the Cornell dual was important,” Wattenberg said. “There was a high level of energy and I think it got the kids excited.  They saw that they could be in the shoes of the college wrestlers and that the sport can be a part of their lives in the future.”

The enthusiasm was apparent as the Cornell wrestlers signed autographs and posed for pictures with the youth wrestlers, as well as other fans, for nearly an hour after the dual with the Mountain Hawks ended.

“The scrambles the college guys get into are really cool,” Silva said. “The matches are so intense the whole time.  It was great to watch.“

“I thought it was so much fun to watch Cornell because they are my favorite team and it is amazing to watch college wrestlers,” added 10-year old Matthew LaPorte of New York.  “I can learn from how good Steve Bosak was in all positions and from how Kyle Dake wrestled.”

Big Red Kickoff Classic Champions:

5/6 Year Old Division

Ashton Seymour                    37-44

Julien Griffith                         50-55

Nicholas Caiati                       65-72

7/8 Year Old Division

Graham Rowland                  49-53

Alex Ramirez                          58-64

Cooper Kropman                  65-72

Cuinn Burlingham                77-92

Charlie Tibbitts                     93-103

9/10 Year Old Division

Joseph Manno                       50-53

Will Grater                             58-60

Chad Sakamoto                     62-64

Max Kropman                       66-69

Dean Shambo                         70-75

Zachary Williams                   77-79

Benny Baker                          80-84

Nicholas Noel                         84-94

Guillermo Escobedo              99-108

11/12 Year Old Division

Jesse Vasquez                       62-70

Kevin Spann                          70-75

Nate Nordin                           75-78

Izzak Olenjik                          78-83

Ethan Leake                           85-88

Nico Mattia                             93-98

Ryan Reyes                            99-105

Patrick Ramirez                     106-112

Frankie Gissendanner          120-133

Dominic Nassivera                142-148

13/15 Year Old Division

Dane Heberlein                     67-82

Alexander Hrisopoulos         84-90

Kai Kramer                            88-94

Evan Wick                              95-99

Zander Wick                          100-105

Devin Schroder                     105-110

Joel Rees                                 114-121

Jake Ryan                               124-133

Devon Pingel                         138-155

Max Dean                               164-176

By Betsy Veysman

The Binghamton University wrestling team, currently ranked #23 in the NWCA/USA Today Division I Coaches poll, will put its undefeated record on the line this week against top 10 opponents Oklahoma and Cornell in a pair of duals assistant coach Frank Beasley titled “The Clash of the Titans.”

According to head coach Pat Popolizio, the term is appropriate, given the significance for the Bearcats.

“These are by far the two biggest duals for Binghamton since we’ve been a Division I program,” he said. “We’ve wrestled great teams before but we’ve had holes in our lineup in the past.  We know beating those teams is a tall order and everything has to go right, but we believe we have the momentum, mindset and talent.”

The #9 Sooners, led by Binghamton native Mark Cody, are set to take on the Bearcats at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 10 at the West Gym.  The event will feature matchups between top 25 wrestlers at four weights, according to the January 3 Wrestlingreport.com rankings:

• 149 Pounds #6 Donnie Vinson (BU) vs. #10 Nick Lester (OU)
• 157 Pounds #6 Justin Lister (BU) vs. #11 Matt Lester (OU)
• 165 Pounds #23 Matt Kaylor (BU) vs. #14 Bubby Graham (OU)
• 184 Pounds #19 Nate Scheidel (BU) vs. #18 Erich Schmidtke (OU)

“I think there are a lot of matches that can go either way,” Popolizio said.  “We’ve wrestled some of their guys in tournaments and we know there will be a lot of close ones. We’ll need to win those kinds of matches if we’re going to win the dual.”

The heavyweight tilt between Binghamton freshman Nick Gwiazdowski, currently ranked #18, and Sooner Kyle Colling will be one of interest for New York wrestling followers.   According to Popolizio, Colling (Pioneer High) handed Gwiazdowski (Duanesburg) his last loss in high school, a 1-0 defeat in the finals of Eastern States when Gwiazdowski was a junior.

“Nick hasn’t forgotten about that match,” Popolizio said. “He’s quite a competitor and that one stuck with him for a while.  He’s looking forward to the chance to wrestle Colling again.”

On Sunday January 15th, the two highest ranked programs in New York State will do battle as Cornell travels down I-81 to meet the Bearcats in a meet that will be part of a basketball-wrestling combination event called “Ball and Brawl”.

“It will be our first ever dual in the Events Center,” Popolizio said. “We’re excited about basketball and wrestling together. The basketball game will be at 2 and then we’ll put the mat onto the court.  It’s an opportunity for people to watch really high level wrestling, so we’re hoping for a great turnout.”

The match will begin at 5 p.m. at the Events Center and will be carried live on Time Warner Cable.  Admission is free.

Last season when the two teams met in Ithaca, the home team captured a 35-3 victory.  While there were some dominant matches for the Big Red, Popolizio noted that Cornell also won the tight bouts.

“We know we have our work cut out for us because Cornell is tough across the board,” Popolizio said. “We may be favored at only three weights on paper – 149, 165 and heavyweight.  Last year they won the close matches.  They did it again against Lehigh this past weekend.  We know we’ll have to win those close ones to close the gap and be successful.”

Binghamton has been quite successful to this point in the season.  The Bearcats have been a perfect 8-0 in duals and had a fourth place showing at the Reno Tournament of Champions in December.

“We feel that the season is going very well,” Popolizio said. “We set our schedule to be very challenging this year and we feel that our team has responded quite well so far.  When the year started, we wanted to beat teams in the top 25 and become a top 25 team.  We’ve done that.”

Binghamton’s ranked wrestlers, Vinson, Lister, Kaylor, Schiedel and Gwiazdowski, have led the charge.  In addition, the Bearcats have received strong contributions from others, including 197-pounder Cody Reed.

“Coming out of high school, Cody wasn’t really highly recruited for Division I,” Popolizio said. “He placed once at small school states.  But he has done really well and is right on the cusp of being a top 20 kid.”

There are more goals to be achieved, according to Popolizio.  Among them are winning the CAA conference, although that isn’t the focus.

“The end of the year is most important,” he said. “We felt that we focused a little too much on the conference tournament last year and fell short at nationals. There’s no reason this team can’t have three All-Americans and finish in the top 15 at nationals.  We have the capability to do those things as we continue our growth as a program.”

The “Clash of the Titans” is the next big step.

For more information on Binghamton wrestling, see bubearcats.com and http://bearcatwrestling.blogspot.com/