No Recovery From Early Deficit

Head coach Jay Weiss has never had a season like this one.

As Saturday’s match at Brown led to the fall of another starter, the Crimson wrestling team faces the prospect of finishing out the season missing eight of its top 10 wrestlers. Despite these setbacks, Harvard (2-8-1, 1-2 Ivy) traveled to Providence coming off of its first two victories of the season last weekend and looked to build on this momentum heading into the tail end of its schedule. Unfortunately, the Bears (7-7, 2-1) had different plans.

Already having to spot Brown 12 points due to forfeit, the Crimson simply couldn’t overcome the deficit and fell, 33-7, at the Pizzatola Center, winning only two of seven matches.

“It’s frustrating,” Weiss said. “It’s great that so many young guys are getting opportunities [to wrestle], but it’s difficult to be competitive without eight guys.”

Sophomore heavyweight Andrew Knapp echoed these sentiments. “It’s disappointing, but you just have to pick yourself up and look forward to next week,” Knapp said.

With only one weekend of regular season matches left, it would be easy for the whole team to already be looking forward to the offseason, but Harvard is doing its best to focus on the present.

“You can’t worry about the injuries,” Weiss said. “I haven’t changed a beat of what I’ve said to the guys.”

Certainly, the match against the Bears provided its bright spots and displayed the Crimson’s penchant for weathering adversity. Although Harvard forfeited at 125 and 141 lbs, junior Tommy Picarsic put up a strong fight at 133 lbs and only fell to Brown’s Jeff Schell by a 2-0 margin, bringing the team score to 0-9.

At 149 lbs, J.P. O’Connor continued his season-long brilliance, earning another major decision to cut the score to 4-15, also pushing his record to 11-0 in dual action (20-1 overall). The third-ranked sophomore has been a success story in a trying year for the Crimson, and O’Connor has promising opportunities in individual competition at the Eastern and National tournaments later this season.

Another positive for the Harvard team appeared in the continuation of a six-match win streak for Matt Button at 165 lbs. The senior took out the Bears’ Chris Muesser to earn the Crimson its only other points in the match.

Unfortunately for Harvard, the rest of the afternoon was ripe with adversity. Senior Bobby Latessa suffered a knee injury in the first minute of his bout at 157 lbs. While Latessa’s inability to continue did not prove decisive in the overall match, the much bigger concern for the Crimson is his health, as the team can hardly afford further losses.

Even after Button’s win, with the score at 21-7, Brown coasted to victory, picking up wins in the last four bouts. Harvard’s Michael Sadler fell, 4-0, at 174 lbs, followed by Fred Rowsey, Billy Colgan, and Knapp, losing 6-2, 8-1, and 6-2 respectively, to end the afternoon.

Next weekend marks the end of this injury-plagued regular season for the Crimson, as Harvard faces Columbia and Cornell, with the Eastern and National individual tournaments coming up shortly after.

Although neither Saturday’s match against the Bears nor the year as a whole have gone exactly as planned, Weiss did not express the dejection one might expect, but instead sounded genuinely optimistic about the final weeks of the season.

“We just have to continue to move forward,” Weiss said. “We have Cory Jantzen hopefully coming back next weekend and that gives us a big lift at 141 lbs.”

Regardless of which wrestlers can compete in the final matches, with an optimistic coach and a squad that has faced more than its share of challenges, Harvard has plenty of fight left as it looks to finish off the season with some team wins and individual successes.