Harvard Wrestling Splits Weekend, With Comeback Win Over Princeton and Loss to Penn

In its only home dual weekend of the season, Harvard wrestling fought back from a seven-point deficit on Saturday afternoon to defeat Princeton 22-17 and end an 18-year losing streak against the Tigers, capped by a decisive heavyweight win from sophomore Hudson Skove. Less than 24 hours later, the Crimson honored its senior class while falling to Penn 33-4 at the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC).

Harvard (4-5, 1-2 Ivy) entered the weekend having dropped both meetings to Princeton (3-8, 1-2) and Penn (6-1, 2-1) last season. The program’s record against the Tigers in particular has been lopsided for much of the past decade. Until this weekend, the Crimson had not defeated Princeton at home since 2008.

Harvard 19, Princeton 17

Saturday’s dual against Princeton began with the consistency Harvard has been building since opening conference competition last weekend. Sophomore Logan Brzozowski set the tone at 125 pounds with a 13-4 major decision, in which he dominated his match-up against the Tigers’ Dale O’Blia. Scoring on multiple takedowns and back points, Brzozowski set his team up for an early lead.

Following the sophomore was junior tri-captain Coleman Nogle. His victory at 133 pounds was much narrower, as he escaped from Princeton’s Ethan Rivera, who attempted to mount a comeback in the third period. Nogle’s decision win added three points to the team total and put the Crimson up 7-0.

Princeton answered quickly. Harvard senior Dante Frinzi opened the 141-pound bout as the leading scorer and offensive driver, but the Tigers’ Matthew Martino went on an unanswered scoring spree in the second period to take the lead, building up to his eventual 15-6 major decision win to put the first team points on the board for Princeton.

The Tigers built on their momentum in the 149-pound match, as junior tri-captain Jack Crook dropped a tightly contested bout in the final minute, fighting for two more points to stay in it, but coming up empty-handed and enabling Princeton to tie the team score at 7-7.

Fortunately for Harvard, tri-captain Jimmy Harrington restored the home team’s advantage by picking up a steady 8-1 decision at 157 pounds. Up 10-7, the Crimson found itself with a small lead heading into the break, hoping to build on it to take the win for the day.

To Harvard’s dismay, the momentum swung sharply in Princeton’s favor in the rest of the middle weights. Junior Joe Cangro could not come up with the win in his 165-pound bout with the Tigers’ Ty Whalen, getting taken down with about 30 seconds to go in the third period to give Princeton an 11-10 lead, its first of the dual.

In the 174-pound match, sophomore Haden Bottiglieri suffered an even worse fate, getting taken down twice by his opponent, the Tigers’ Holden Garcia, before getting pinned off a scramble with just seconds remaining in the first period. The fall handed the visitors a 17-10 lead and put the Crimson on its heels with just three bouts left.

Despite the high stakes, Harvard responded with composure. Junior Matt Walsh picked up a critically close win by decision at 184 pounds that included multiple coaches’ challenges from Harvard’s Head Coach Jay Weiss, resulting in several awarded takedowns. The victory helped the Crimson close the deficit to four with just the two heaviest bouts remaining.

“We talk about that a lot. Do we throw it?” said Weiss about the importance of the challenge brick. “If it’s a question, a bad call, you’ve got to do it. I wanted to throw it a couple more times.”

Freshman Dylan Greenstein delivered another critical win for Harvard at 197 pounds, headlined by an incredible defensive showing in the third period when he resisted being pinned for nearly 45 seconds to grab the 6-2 decision. That left the outcome in the hands of the final heavyweight.

“I’m still struggling with the injury, and in the back of my mind it’s lingering,” said Greenstein, who came back from a shoulder injury sustained earlier in the season. “Going through my mind was, I’ve got to get out, and it’s a process. It’s something I’m working on every day.”

With the dual on the line, sophomore Hudson Skove entered a gritty battle with Princeton’s Conor McCloskey that went scoreless into the third period. Tensions were high as Crimson fans and coaches got to their feet multiple times to protest what they saw as uncalled takedowns that would have given Skove the lead. Nevertheless, Weiss did not throw the challenge brick.

The coaching staff’s patience was rewarded in the third period, as Skove was awarded a takedown that was unsuccessfully challenged by Princeton. Grasping at the quickly fading hope of a team victory, McCloskey shot desperately but was met with Skove’s sprawl to outlast the clock and seize the final team points to send Harvard over the Tigers in a nail-biting finish.

The MAC erupted as Skove’s hand was raised, marking a rare turning of the tide in a rivalry that for 18 years tilted toward Princeton.

“Just because the stakes are different, it doesn’t mean that it is advantageous to treat them like they’re different,” Skove said. “Dual meets are about team effort. So even if you’re the last win, the only way that we win is everyone winning their matches and even the guy that’s losing, not giving up bonus points.”

Harvard 4, Penn 33

Before the dual on Sunday, Harvard celebrated its four-member senior class, honoring the group’s contributions to the program. But once the wrestling began, Penn asserted itself early and decisively as the dominant program.

The Quakers won the first four bouts of the afternoon, including a tech fall over Frinzi and a major decision over Crook, to put themselves up 15-0 going into the 157-pound matchup.

Harrington, a 2025 NCAA Championships qualifier and NWCA Academic All-American, came out on the mat in his final home performance with the Crimson, hoping to stop the bleeding and get Harvard on the board. Sure enough, he took a commanding 12-3 major decision over Penn’s Wyatt Stout and electrified the crowd with multiple mat returns, including in the very final seconds of the bout. These would be Harvard’s only points of the day in its second-lowest scoring performance of the season.

“Great way to finish it off,” said Harrington about his last time wrestling in front of the home crowd. “I love it here. I love all my teammates, so it was great to do that with them.”

The best opportunities for Harvard to regain its footing were in the middle of the lineup, but the Crimson came up short each time.

“The score is a lot different than what happened,” Weiss said after the match. “They could have flipped the other way. We’ve got to find a way.”

Cangro fought hard with a promising start to the 165-pound bout that went scoreless into the third period, but his opponent managed to score with only a minute remaining, and despite pleas from spectators and coaches, Cangro was unable to pick up points to keep himself in it.

Bottiglieri experienced another heartbreaking loss for the Crimson, finding his reversal points taken away after a challenge from the Penn bench and giving up a takedown and back points to seal the decision win for the Quakers.

Unable to revive the energy of the previous day’s win over Princeton, Harvard dropped the three heaviest bouts as well. At 184 pounds, Walsh held on to force the match into sudden victory, where his opponent scored a quick takedown that he was unable to escape. The 197-pound bout ended in a major decision win for Penn, and senior Jaeden Kinlock, a newcomer joining the wrestling team after competing as a linebacker for Harvard football, found himself defeated by tech fall at heavyweight, closing the weekend on a difficult note for the Crimson.

“We’ve got to respond better,” Weiss said. “I thought we’d wrestle better, especially at home.”

Harvard has a break in competition this weekend before traveling to New York for a pair of road duals against Columbia on Feb. 14 and Hofstra on Feb. 15. The team will look to carry the confidence from Saturday’s comeback into the final stretch of the Ivy League schedule.

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