Wrestling Looks for Heavy Renaissance

With the end of fall sports around the corner, Harvard athletics is moving indoors.

That means it's time to hit the mats.

The Harvard wrestling team will be looking to improve on last season, when the team finished second to last in the Eastern Interathletic Conference.

Harvard's poor showing last season can be traced to one main source--weakness in the upper weight classes. Despite featuring an excellent crop of lightweights, the team was unable to put together the total team performance required to win meets. In fact, Harvard only won two dual meets last season.

Wrestling meets include 10 weight classes: 118, 126, 134, 142, 150, 158, 167, 177, 190, and heavy-weight (over 190). Although the wrestlers compete individually in their respective weight class, the teams outcome depends on the total score of all the matches.

"We were thin up top last year," sophomore 134-pounder Joel Friedman said. "In dual meets we'd often be winning until we reached the 158-pound mark, and then we'd lose it."

However, the Crimson has a simple solution to last season's problems--freshmen. Second-year coach Jay Weiss, noted for his recruiting skills, has managed to land Harvard the fourteenth-ranked recruiting class in the nation. The class is even more impressive because it strengthens the weak points in the lineup.

Key freshman recruits are Ed Mosley, who will wrestle at 158 pounds, and Dan Devivo, who will wrestle at 167. Mosley was the junior national champion last year and Devivo was the national prep champion the last two years.

Strong returnees for the Crimson include Friedman, sophomore Dustin DeNunzio in the 126 pound class, and senior captain Steven Gerstung at 150 pounds.

"This year we're solid in the upper weights, and the lower weights are a year older," DeNunzio said.

Harvard has yet to begin its regular season, but it did participate in an exhibition meet against the Korean National Team last week. The meet was very difficult for the Crimson wrestlers, because they had to wrestle international-style freestyle, and not collegiate Greco-Roman style. And many of the wrestlers had never wrestled freestyle before.

All things considered, the outcome of the exhibition was very promising. The Crimson lost 24-15, winning three of the ten matches. However, in three other matches the Harvard wrestler only lost in the last 30 seconds.

These results are especially encouraging in light of the fact that a strong Boston University squad lost several of their matches to the Korean team by technical default.

"We were really aggressive," Freidman said. "I thought we looked good."

"It was a great experience," Devivo said. "A lot of guys hadn't wrestled freestyle before, and I thought we had a good showing."

After the regular season, the squad will go to the Eastern Interathletic Conference tournament, where it will enter the top wrestler in each weight class into a 14-team tournament.

How well each wrestler does over the course of the season affects their seeding in this tournament. Each wrestler must perform well in their weight class for the team to do well at this tournament.

Because several of the team's top wrestlers are freshmen, the team's tournament showing will depend a lot on how these freshmen mature over the season.

"I think we're more competitive this year," Gerstung said. "I think the freshmen should react pretty well to all the challenges."

The best way to rise to the challenge is to work hard, and the squad has been doing plenty of that. Several of the returning wrestlers wrestled over the summer, and the team has had a high intensity level in its practices so far.

"We've been working hard, pushing each other, and improving," Devivo said. "I think it's going to show in the next two years."