Regular Season Ends with Two Ivy Losses

With a packed crowd at the Malkin Athletic Center, the Harvard wrestling squad had one last chance to salvage its season in front of its home crowd, but the team just could not pull it off.

The Crimson hosted Columbia and Cornell this weekend for its final duals of the season, looking to pick up one final win, but dropped both matchups for its fourth and fifth losses in a row.

Harvard (2-15) lost to the Lions first on Friday, 32-7, but then suffered an even worse fate against the Big Red on Saturday, getting trounced, 40-9. Although the team lost by a large margin, the Crimson tied for the most points an Ivy League squad has scored against No. 1 Cornell.

Despite the losses, two Harvard grapplers, sophomore co-captain Walter Peppelman and classmate Steven Keith, stood out and recorded wins in the last home matches of the season.

“They did awesome,” Crimson coach Jay Weiss said. “To pull [off] those two wins for us was great.”

NO. 1 CORNELL 40, HARVARD 9

Going up against Cornell, Harvard was not expected to win but managed to post big victories.

Keith started things off with a major upset over 10th-ranked Frank Perrelli at 125 pounds. In the third period, Keith was up, 3-1, and it seemed that he would be able to easily ride out the time for the win. All of a sudden, Perrelli turned the tables on Keith and got a takedown for two points to send the match into overtime.

In overtime, neither opponent was able to earn an escape, but Perrelli almost pinned Keith early on. Later in the tiebreaker, Keith earned a quick escape and kept his opponent from scoring another point to eke out the victory, 4-3.

“Right before overtime in the Cornell match, I said, ‘You’re going to win this match,’” Weiss said. “You could tell in the body language of both wrestlers. I thought the Cornell wrestler was tired, and Steven was getting even stronger as the match went on.”

The matchup at 157 pounds between No. 6 Peppelman and No. 11 DJ Meagher did not disappoint either. After the first three minutes, neither wrestler had managed to score a point. After trading escapes, the matchup was still tied at 1-1, and it looked as if there would be another overtime battle. Peppelman put a stop to any notion of going into extra periods by pinning his opponent with 45 seconds left in regular time.

“I was excited going into the matchup because he was one of the wrestlers that beat me earlier this year,” Peppelman said. “My strategy was to wrestle hard and trust our training.”

COLUMBIA 32, HARVARD 7

Against the Lions, Harvard fared slightly better in the point differentials, but still dropped the first of the team’s two losses for the weekend.

The biggest match of the night came in the final contest that pitted co-captain Andrew Knapp and Columbia’s Kevin Lester at 285 pounds. The two remained even throughout most of the match, both failing to score a point at the end of the first period, and remained tied at one after seven minutes to send the match into overtime.

After they both picked up quick escapes, Lester earned another two points for a reversal. Knapp’s only hope to continue the match was a takedown. At one point, it seemed as though Knapp had his opponent down, and there was a dispute over whether Knapp scored the two necessary points, but the referee ultimately lifted Lester’s hand in the air, declaring him the winner.

“I’m always telling my athletes, ‘Don’t let it come down to the official,’” Weiss said. “I thought, especially in that match, Andrew should have taken it into his own hands.”

Even though it has been a less than favorable season for the Crimson wrestling squad, Harvard’s standouts still have a chance to redeem their season—as did J. P. O’Connor ’10 last year—at the upcoming EIWA Championships and the NCAA Championships..

—Staff writer Steven T. A. Roach can be reached at sroach@fas.harvard.edu.