Three Qualify as Wrestling Finishes Fourth in EIWA Championhips

Dawid Rechul will end his Harvard career as a two-time EIWA champion. With his first title, sophomore Jesse Jantzen’s reign has just begun.

Although defending team champion Harvard placed fourth at last weekend’s Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) championships at Lehigh, Rechul, Jantzen and junior Pat O’Donnell qualified for the NCAA championships March 21-23 in Albany, N.Y.

Like last year, two Harvard wrestlers won their divisions, and one was named the tournament’s most outstanding wrestler.

Co-captain Rechul, last year’s Most Outstanding Wrestler, defended his heavyweight championship, while the top-seeded Jantzen, a sophomore, won the 149-lb. division, earning Most Outstanding Wrestler honors and the Sheridan Award for most falls. O’Donnell placed third at 165 lbs. to win a wild-card berth in the NCAAs.

Co-captain Kevin El-Hayek ended his career by finishing third in the 133-pound class, while juniors Reggie Lee (184 lbs.) and Robbie Griffin (157 lbs.) finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

In one of the tournament’s most exciting matches, Rechul avenged a late February loss to Brown’s Bronson Lingamfelter, winning 6-5 in the heavyweight final to defend his title.

Rechul, seeded second, had lost to No. 1 Lingamfelter, 10-2, at Brown while bothered by a leg injury.

Now healthy, the smaller Rechul came back from an early takedown and 2-0 deficit to claim a 5-2 lead in the second period and hold on for the win.

“He wrestled the best he’s wrestled all year,” Harvard coach Jay Weiss said of Rechul.

En route to the championship, Rechul, a native of Poland, took down two-thirds of the U.S. military with victories over Army’s Brendon Devlin and Navy’s Steve Kovach. In defeating Lingamfelter, Rechul became only the third Harvard wrestler to win two consecutive EIWAs, following Joey Killar ’00 and Dustin DeNunzio ’99.

Jantzen’s final was as decisive as Rechul’s was exciting. When Jantzen faced Penn senior Joe Henson several weeks ago, he wrestled defensively to earn a 1-0 victory. Facing Henson again on Sunday, Jantzen showed little restraint, pinning his top ten-ranked opponent in 1:47.

If Jantzen gave Henson’s second seed a second thought, he certainly didn’t show it. Jantzen took him down, turned him, let him up, took him down again, turned him and pinned him.

“When I wrestled him a few weeks ago, I didn’t feel as good,” Janzten said. “[This time] I ended up a getting a throw on him when he was nearly out of bounds, so maybe he let up a bit. It was a combination of me feeling better and getting lucky.”

Jantzen’s victory in the finals came a day after he pinned semifinal opponent Jason Mercado of Brown in 1:26, recorded a 19-4 technical fall over Navy’s Pat Lukanich, and blanked Lehigh’s Troy Minarovic, 14-0.

“Jesse would have pinned [Minarovic], but the guy had rubber shoulders,” Weiss said. “He spent five miuntes of the seven minute match on his back.”

Jantzen’s growing list of accomplishments continues to astound.

“The guy’s amazing,” Weiss said. “He’s got his eyes on a bigger goal.”

El-Hayek was unable to equal his teammates’ success. As the top seed, he was upset in Saturday’s semifinal by fifth seed and eventual champion Dan Hyman of Lehigh.

“After I lost that match, I pretty much knew that my career would end the following day,” El-Hayek said. “I went out and wrestled my last two matches and tried to leave everything on the mat.”

El-Hayek, who took a year off after his sophomore year to focus on training, has matured into the ultimate team leader, Weiss and Jantzen said.

After being upset in the semifinals last year, El-Hayek was able to swallow the loss and come back to finish third, knowing that his team needed the points to win the EIWAs. This year, with Harvard out of contention for the title, only pride was on the line.

El-Hayek, though, downed Army’s T.J. Grider in the consolation semis, 4-2 (he had beaten Grider, 6-2, in the first round), and Columbia’s Steve Popovitch, 6-2, for third place.

O’Donnell showed similar resiliency in his consolation matches, and his third-place finish was good enough to earn him a bid to Albany.

After losing to Penn’s Josh Henson—Joe’s twin brother— in the semis, O’Donnell avenegd an earlier loss to Cornell’s Scott Roth, winning 6-5.

“Every time I’ve wrestled him, he’s scored first,” O’Donnell said. “This time, I took him down first and that made the difference.”

Down a point in the third and final period, Roth tied the score with 15 seconds remaining. O’Donnell was able to escape from Roth with five seconds left for the victory.

Despite Harvard’s fourth-place finish, Weiss was pleased with his team’s performance.

“By winning the EIWAS last year, the bar’s been set pretty high,” Weiss said. He pointed to the fact that four Harvard wrestlers—Rechul, O’Donnell, Lee and freshman 197-pounder Jonas Corl—all avenged regular-season losses.

“We’re peaking at the right time,” Weiss said. “We gear our whole program to placing people in the NCAAs.”