March 5, 2011
• 2011 EIWA Championship - Day 1 Results
LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Nine Navy wrestlers remain active, two in the championship bracket and seven in the consolations, following the first day of action at the 107th EIWA Championship, as the Mids currently sit in sixth place in the team standings with 69.5 points. Meanwhile, seniors Bryce Saddoris (Spring Creek, Nev.) and Matt DeMichiel (Whitesboro, N.Y.) have already clinched berths to wrestle at the 2011 NCAA Championship in Philadelphia, Pa. on March 17-19.
"I'm definitely happy sending nine of the 10 guys into the second day of action," said 11th-year head coach Bruce Burnett. "I would have liked to have seen some of them wrestling for a higher finish, but I'm proud of getting them onto the platform. We are still making way too many mistakes this late in the season, but we will continue to learn from this experience.
"I'm excited for Bryce and Matt who not only have a chance at winning an EIWA Championship, but who will have the opportunity to become All-Americans by qualifying for the NCAA Championship. We still have the opportunity to have two more qualify tomorrow and then we'll have to see how it plays out with the at-large selections later next week."
Top-ranked and defending EIWA Champion Cornell sits in the driver's seat with a 41-point advantage over second-place Lehigh in the team standings. Cornell has amassed 146 points and has six wrestlers who are wrestling on the championship side of the bracked, while Lehigh owns 105 points and has three wrestlers in the championship bracket. American stands third with a one-point edge over Rutgers, 84-83, while Penn stands fifth with 80.5 points.
Navy found itself in a huge deficit after the opening round, as seven Midshipmen were "awarded" first-round byes, costing the team up to 15 points in the standings. One team received five first-round byes with the remaining 11 teams having four or fewer byes.
Saddoris, along with DeMichiel and junior Luke Rebertus (Gloucester, Va.) came into the tournament as the Mids' highest seeded wrestlers with Saddoris drawing the No. 2 seed and DeMichiel and Rebertus capturing No. 3 seeds in their respective weight classes. Ranked eighth nationally and No. 2 in the RPI, Saddoris not only cruised to a 12-4 win over seventh-seeded Brantley Hooks of Bucknell in his opening bout of the day, the 2009 All-American broke the Mids' school record for career wins with the victory. He went on to score a 5-1 win over Harvard's Walter Peppelman, the tournament's third seed, to punch his ticket into the championship bout at 157 pounds.
Saddoris, who is now just the fifth wrestler in program history to qualify for the NCAA Championship in each of his four seasons, will be matched up against top-seeded Steve Fittery of American, who is also the nation's No. 1-ranked wrestler. Certainly no strangers, Saddoris picked off Fittery in the quarters of last year's EIWA Championship to advance to the finals. The two have not met this season.
Now Navy's all-time winningest wrestler, Saddoris owns a 143-37 career record including a 33-5 mark this season. He is the only wrestler in school history to win 30 or more matches in each of his four seasons.
After missing last year's EIWA Championship after suffering a broken leg just weeks leading up to the event, DeMichiel has reached his dream of competing at the NCAA Championship in his final season. DeMichiel edged Columbia's Stephen West, 5-4, in his first bout of the day before upsetting the No. 2 seed Austin Meys of Lehigh for the second time this season. On Jan. 15 in the annual Navy-Lehigh dual held in Annapolis, DeMichiel held on for a 6-5 victory over Meys who was then ranked ninth. Putting together a takedown and an escape, DeMichiel held on (3-2) to punch his ticket into the finals of the 174-pound EIWA Championship where he will meet Annapolis native Mack Lewnes, the nation's third-ranked wrestler, of Cornell.
Rebertus and fourth-seeded Aaron Kalil (Salem, N.H.) have the potential to finish as high as third or as low as sixth in Sunday's final day of action. Should the two win their first match of the day, they will qualify for the NCAA Championship. The NCAA has awarded five spots to the 125-pound weight class where Kalil will be vying for a spot, while Rebertus needs to finish among the top four to earn his second berth to the national tournament.
Kalil won a hard-fought match over fifth-seeded Steven Keith of Harvard, but dropped a 4-3 decision in the second tie breaker against top-seeded Frank Perrelli of Cornell despite dominating the match. After escapes by each wrestler send the match into extra minutes, Perrelli took the lead in the first tie breaker with an escape. Kalil, however, was awarded a two-point reversal, but couldn't hold on as Perrelli snuck out and evened the match. After a scoreless second sudden victory period, Kalil chose the bottom position in the second tie breaker, but Perrelli rode him out. Meanwhile, Perrelli scored the escape to win the match. It was a disappointing loss for Kalil who lost a 4-3 decision to Perrelli, ranked 12th nationally, in the opening bout of the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational in early December. Kalil, who owns a 27-9 record, will battle Army's David White Sunday morning. Although Army and Navy squared off in their annual dual just two weeks ago, it was Coffey who wrestled Kalil. This will be the first meeting between the two and a win by Kalil would give him his second-straight NCAA Tournament berth.
Meanwhile, Rebertus faced sixth-seeded Cameron Croy of Harvard in the first round, needing little effort to score the 8-2 victory. However, 13th-ranked Rebertus drew sixth-ranked Steve Bosak of Cornell for his next match and the tables were reversed. The Navy junior was unable to get anything going in the match, as Bosak kept Rebertus off the scoreboard in a 4-0 victory, sending Rebertus to the consolation bracket.
Rebertus, who owns a 28-8 record this season, will battle Columbia's Nick Mills, the fifth seed, in Sunday's action. Should he win, he'd advance to the third-place match where he would face either Rutgers' Dan Rinaldi or Bucknell's Rob Waltko.
Five Navy wrestlers will be in action in the seventh-eighth place match -- senior Allen Stein (Portland, Maine) at 133 pounds, junior Dustin Haislip (Inwood, W.Va.) at 141 pounds, sophomore Mason Bailey (Fairmont, W.Va.) at 165 pounds, sophomore Oscar Huntley (Stafford, Va.) at 197 pounds and sophomore heavyweight Dan Miller (Berlin, Md.).
The only Navy wrestler who ended his season on Saturday was freshman Joe Locksmith (Kissimmee, Fla.), who bowed out at 141 pounds with a 4-3 loss to sixth-seeded Steve Santos of Columbia and a major decision against Lehigh's Joseph Napoli, the fourth seed.
The 107th EIWA Championships will continue on Sunday beginning at 10:00 am with the consolation semifinals. Consolation finals are slated to begin at 11:30 am, while the championship matches are on tap for 3:00 pm.
### Go Navy ###
