ELIZABETHTOWN, PA – The Johns Hopkins wrestling team got second-place finishes from senior Connor Powell (165) and junior Freddy Pimental (149) and three other individuals placed in the top five to power the Blue Jays to a sixth-place finish at Elizabethtown's Blue Jay Classic with 103 points on Saturday.
 
Host Elizabethtown won the team title with 181.5 points, while Wilkes (152.5), Albright (139.5), McDaniel (135) and Scranton (108) rounded out the top five in the team scoring in the 10-team tournament.
 
Powell earned the number two seed and worked his way to the title bout with a pin, technical fall and decision in his first three matches and then cruised past Paul Sanderson of Elizabethtown, 16-0, in the semifinals.  In the final against Etown's Justice Hockenberry-Folk, he fell behind 11-0 in the first period before losing by technical fall (16-0).
 
Pimental was also seeded second and scored back-to-back wins by technical fall (15-0, 16-0) in his first two matches to advance to the semifinals.  There, he led Ben Grater of Wilkes just 4-1 entering the final period before using a pair of takedowns to fuel a 10-3 win.  In the finals, he fell to second-ranked Thomas Monn of McDaniel by fall in the first period.
 
Sophomore Giorgio Difalco added a third-place finish at 149 as he went 4-1 on the day.  Among his four wins on the day were three wins by decision and one by fall against Scranton's Alexander Santoro (1:44).
 
Senior Jacob Pomykata (285) finished 2-2 on the day with a pair of wins by fall to his credit, while sophomore Duncan Stadler (133) worked his way to a fifth-place finish with four wins (4-1).  Among Stadler's four victories were a pair of first-period pins and two wins by technical fall.
 
Other highlights for the Blue Jays on Saturday included:
• AJ Gordon (174) went 3-2 on the day with two wins by fall and one technical fall to his credit.
• Brennan McGrann (157) posted a 4-2 record with three of his four wins coming by fall.
• Eric Gendlin (157) went 3-2 with a pin and a major decision among his three victories.
 
What's Next
The Blue Jays will return to action on January 3 when they take on NYU, the University of Chicago and Case Western at NYU>