Wrestling Debuts at East Stroudsburg

Fresh off its most succesful season ever last year, the Harvard wrestling team brought all of its healthy members to the East Stroudsburg Open on Saturday and many of them came home with satisfying results.

Sophomore superstar Jesse Jantzen finished first at 149 pounds, decisively defeating Penn State’s Nate Wachter 9-6 in the final.

Jantzen, last year’s co-All Ivy Rookie of the Year, was named the outstanding wrestler of the tournament.

Co-captain Dawid Rechul came in second in the heavyweight class. Rechul competed valiantly against the larger John Testa of Clarion, losing 5-3 in an extremely close match.

Rechul weighs about 228 lbs, while Testa weighs in at about 250. Rechul recorded the most pins of the tournament—with four—in an amazing time of five minutes and 16 seconds.

Freshman Jonas Corl also competed in the heavyweight division, coming in sixth after losing to Gloucester’s Carmelo Marrero 10-6.

Harvard junior Reggie Lee defeated Columbia’s T.J. Francisco 9-7 to place fifth in the 184-lb. class. Sophomore P.J. Jones (174 lbs.) placed sixth after losing to Greg Chirieleison of Lehigh.

The East Stroudsburg Open is one of the few tournaments that allows schools to bring their entire squads,instead of just one man per wieght class. As a result, all of Harvard’s healthy wrestlers were able to get in some valuable match time.

“This tournament was important for the older guys coming off injuries to see how they feel and important for the younger guys in terms of gaining experience,” senior Pat O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell did not compete due to a rib injury, but was impressed with his team’s performance.

“We wrestled well,” O’Donnell said. “Our conditioing was good, especially compared with the other teams. We had several overtime matches and we won them all and we came back to win a lot of close matches.”

This weekend’s meet was the first team competition for Harvard, who last year won its first-ever Ivy League crown and Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Assocation title.

Rechul—who won an individual title at EIWAs last year—was slightly disappointed with his personal performance this weekend.

“I made a bunch of mistakes,” Rechul said. “[Testa] didn’t score any offensive points off me.”

Rechul did have plenty of good things to say about Jantzen, on the other hand.

“He’s an awesome talent with a great work ethic. He gets in his opponent’s face, he never stops working. I don’t know what they think when they wrestle him. They can’t score on him, they can’t escape him.”

Jantzen is coming off a first-place finish at last week’s Bearcat Open at Binghamton, N.Y.

Jantzen, the No. 1 ranked wrestler in the EIWA at 149 lbs., is expected to contend for the NCAA title.

Rechul is also ranked No. 1 in the EIWA at heavyweight.

The Crimson has an important tournament upcoming, with the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational scheduled for Nov. 30.

“It’s one of the only times we get to face good wrestlers from the midwest. How we do here will be very important for our seed in the NCAAs,” Rechul said..

“Four out of the top six or seven guys at heavyweight will be there,” he added.

With Jantzen and Rechul at the helm, Harvard looks to be in good shape for its trip to Las Vegas.