Nov. 18, 2007
ONEONTA, NY - The Johns Hopkins wrestling team finished fifth at the Red Dragon Invitational hosted by SUNY-Oneonta on Saturday. The Blue Jays, who finished with 105.5 points, had one individual champion and six other wrestlers finish in the top six in their weight class.
The meet was won by Cortland, who is ranked #14 in the recent NWCA poll, while New York University was second and Niagara Community College was third. The award for the most outstanding wrestler of the meet went to Nick Coleman of NYU who wrestled at 184-pounds while the most falls award went to Takafumi Hashimoto also of NYU.
Hopkins junior Tyler Schmidt (Richmond, VA/St. Christopher's) earned the number one seed at 197-pounds for the tournament. Schmidt opened his action with a pair of pins before recording a 6-1 decision over the eight seed, Mike Diorio of Oneonta. He then advanced to the championship bout of his weight class with a 2-1 decision over John Taylor, the fifth seed from Niagara CC. Schmidt captured his second title of the year with a major decision over Peter Madden, the second seed from Hunter College.
Junior Matt Rugani (Bronxville, NY/Bronxville) finished second at 285-pounds for the Blue Jays on Saturday. Rugani opened with a pair of decisions including one against the fifth seed, JT Petrillo of Southern Maine. He followed that up with a decision against the fourth seed, Adam Abdelhamed of RIT. Rugani advanced to the championship bout with a 3-0 decision over the top seed at 285-pounds Josh St. Ours of Plymouth State. In the championship bout, Rugani fell on a 3-0 decision to Joe Murphy of Cortland.
Hopkins had two wrestlers finish fourth in their weight class at the meet. Freshman Ben Kauffman (Phoenix, AZ/Sandra Day O'Connor) competed at 141-pounds for the Blue Jays. He won his first match of the day before dropping a 3-2 decision to Joey Widrick of Cortland. Kauffman then picked up three wins in the wrestleback bracket by major decision, decision, and forfeit. Kauffman was then handed a loss by pin in the third-place match by Matt Ulrich of Southern Maine. Freshman Eric Levenseller (Tabernacle, NJ/Seneca) was in action at 157-pounds for the Blue Jays. Levenseller got three wins, two by decision before falling to Nate Bachmann of RIT by decision. Levenseller picked up a win by decision in the wrestleback bracket before falling on a pin to Takafumi Hashimoto in the third-place match.
Hopkins returns to action at the Petrofes Invitational hosted by Messiah College. The invitational will take place on November 30 and December 1 in Grantham, PA.
Individual Bracket Results from the Red Dragon Invitational
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