Harvard Wrestling Unable to Weather the Storm at Cornell, Buries Binghamton

Harvard wrestling traveled to New York a day earlier than scheduled, dropping a challenging road test 31-11 to No. 22 Cornell before stringing together six straight wins to take a dominant 30-13 victory over Binghamton.

Against Cornell, the Crimson (3-4, 0-1 Ivy League) has long struggled in its decades-long rivalry, with the Big Red (5-4, 2-0) winning the last 23 straight duals, 24 including Saturday’s score. Meanwhile, Harvard’s much shorter history with Binghamton (6-3, 3-1 EIWA) has only produced nine dual meets, of which the Bearcats have taken six, including the last three duals. In both cases, Harvard was looking to turn the tables of its program history.

Harvard’s Head Coach, Jay Weiss, framed the matchup not in terms of the final score, but in terms of execution.

“I didn’t want to focus on outcome. I wanted them to focus on output,” Weiss said. “We had to move everything up a day, which messed up our training cycle, weight cut, and everything like that. But it is what it is.”

Harvard started the day by trying to hold its own against the highly regarded Cornell squad, highlighted by a couple of victories at the lightest weights and a late win at 197 pounds.

Sophomore Logan Brzozowski set the tone early, earning a tech fall over Ernie Perry. The win marked Brzozowski’s fourth dual victory of the season and his second by tech fall.

At 133 pounds, junior captain Coleman Nogle came out on top of the most heavily scrutinized match of the day, which came down to a coach’s challenge in the final seconds of the bout. Nogle and his opponent, Brett Ungar, stayed tied up and defensive for most of the low-scoring match, with Nogle scoring first with a takedown and Ungar getting two points on the board to make it 3-2 into the third.

As the seconds expired in the third period, Ungar went for an unsuccessful takedown, and Nogle was pronounced the winner. Throughout the bout, tensions visibly rose among the Cornell coaches and spectators, who believed that Nogle, already cited with one stalling call from earlier in the match, should have been called for stalling again.

The call would have given Ungar an extra point to tie the match and sent it into sudden victory. After an official review, the no-call stood, and Nogle was awarded the second of Harvard’s three individual victories over the Big Red.

Coming off a thrilling finish at 133 pounds, senior Dante Frinzi’s 141-lb matchup was a harsh awakening for the Crimson. Against FloWrestling’s No. 6 Vince Cornella, Frinzi went on defense from the start, responding to Cornella’s aggressive pressure. Able to get a takedown off of a double, Cornella was able to pin Frinzi with 51.0 seconds left in the first period.

Junior captain Jack Crook was next up on the mat at 149 pounds, facing off against No. 2 Jaxon Joy, whose only loss during the whole season was to the No. 1 recruit of the Class of 2026, Bo Bassett.

Known for his highly effective cradle, Joy was able to lock it up on Crook a couple of times to get back points, but was unable to get the pin. Crook mostly scored on escapes and picked up a couple of stall warnings heading into the third period. Trying to hold off his opponent from a fall or tech fall, he was almost spladled by Joy before time ran out. Joy won by major decision.

No. 27 captain Jimmy Harrington came out next for a highly anticipated bout with No. 7 Meyer Schapiro at 157 pounds. Harrington found himself on defense for much of the first period, which concluded with Schapiro trying for the pin but held off as time expired. Harrington went on the offensive in the following periods, but ultimately was turned by Schapiro in the third for back points.

The following match was at 165 pounds between junior Joe Cangro and Cornell’s Louie Cerchio. More highly contested than its predecessors, the bout consisted of early handfighting and tie-ups between the athletes, punctuated by a couple of takedowns for Cerchio and a couple of escapes for Cangro. The match resulted in an 8-2 decision for Cornell, spurring the Big Red to an 18-8 lead over the Crimson halfway through the dual.

Climbing an uphill battle, freshman Ben Smith went out to battle No. 2 Simon Ruiz, a 2025 NCAA Championships placer and All-American. Ruiz made quick work of the match, earning a tech fall in the first period with Smith only able to score a few points from escapes.

Unfortunately for Harvard, junior Matt Walsh was unable to chip away at Cornell’s lead in his bout against No. 16 Christian Hansen. Although Hansen was able to get a few early takedowns, Walsh kept it close with escapes just before the third period. Trying to break into the lead in the final minutes, Walsh started on top but was unable to hang on as his opponent scored on a reversal and was almost able to pin him, ultimately winning by decision.

The light at the end of the tunnel for the Crimson came in the penultimate match of the dual at 197 pounds. Sophomore Hudson Skove faced off against the Big Red’s Carson Crace in a close bout that came down to a scramble as time ran out. The low score of the match does not reflect the unending struggle between the athletes to take offensive control, and Skove fought back from behind to tie it up in the third period before getting a takedown off a scramble on the match to win 5-2 by decision.

Closing out the dual for the Crimson at heavyweight was a new face — senior Jaeden Kinlock, a linebacker for Harvard football.

Kinlock approached the coaching staff before winter break with a unique request.

“He just came to me before our semester break and said he wanted to finish his college career wrestling, and he just wanted to help the team out,” Weiss said. “I was blown away. Talk about not being prepared, yet going into battle. He just looked at it as an opportunity of a lifetime.”

Although Cornell’s Cy Kruse won by tech fall to seal the dual victory for the Big Red, Kinlock scored multiple times in his collegiate wrestling debut and displayed a notably strong headlock technique.

“I think it’s very inspiring,” Weiss added. “He’s going to look back on that way down the road and really think it was a big deal. Super kid.”

The Crimson then boarded a bus to travel to Binghamton for its second dual of the day, leaving little time to dwell on the loss.

“That’s something in our sport, we have to focus on short-term memory,” Weiss said. “You’ve just got to really put that behind you and focus on the next match. That’s part of our game.”

Harvard responded emphatically against the Bearcats after a tough loss to Cornell, winning six straight matches to open the dual and blow the gates wide open for its eventual 30-13 victory.

Brzozowski carried over his momentum from the Cornell match, earning a 4-2 decision over fellow 125-pounder Carson Wagner in a highly contested match that included several mat returns from both wrestlers.

Nogle too came up with his second win of the day in a dominant performance over Dillon Arrick, securing an 8-0 major decision to mark his first of the season since coming back from injury. Controlling the offense for the majority of the match, Nogle was close to a pin but instead came away with multiple takedowns, including a perfectly executed turn on his underhook that Arrick was entirely unprepared for.

In one of the most electrifying moments of the day for the Crimson, Frinzi, who himself had been pinned in Cornell, pinned Ryan Hartung just seconds into the bout after shooting a double and locking up a cradle to tally on another win for Harvard.

Crook tacked on a huge victory himself, picking up a tech fall over Binghamton’s Caleb Sweet.

Harrington followed at 157 pounds to battle to a 5-2 decision against the Bearcats’ Fin Nadeau. Although it came close, Harrington was able to outlast both Nadeau and the clock to walk away with the Crimson’s fifth-straight win of the dual.

Notching the second pin of Harvard’s demolition of Binghamton, Cangro pulled off a fall with a little over a minute left in the first period to put the Crimson up 27-0 over the Bearcats.

Fortunately for Bearcats athletes, coaches, and fans, there was a reprieve from the slaughter as senior Carter Baer came up with a dominant tech fall win over Smith at 174 pounds to score the first team points for Binghamton.

Harvard’s Walsh responded at 184 pounds with a contested decision involving coach’s challenges from both benches, which he ended up taking home after a reversal in the last seconds of the third period and the added riding time advantage.

Binghamton went on to claim the two heaviest bouts, but Harvard’s early surge proved insurmountable.

“I just loved how they turned it around. That was really neat for me to see as a coach,” Weiss said. “You always try to get them to turn the page, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. And we just came out on fire.”

Crimson fans can catch the next wrestling action at the Malkin Athletic Center in a double-header home weekend featuring the Princeton Tigers on Jan. 31 at 1:00 p.m. EST and the Penn Quakers on Feb. 1 at 1:00 p.m. EST.

—Staff Writer Rani J. Amin can be reached at [email protected].