Pair of Grapplers Excels at Tourney

It has a lot to live up to, but this season’s Harvard wrestling squad proved it is ready to step up to the challenge.

The wrestling team traveled to Binghamton, N.Y. to compete in the annual Binghamton Open yesterday and saw the best results from its middle weight classes. Action kicked off at 9 a.m. and went into the late evening.

Two of the Crimson wrestlers were battling until the last stage of the tournament. Although Harvard could not pull out a win in any of the weight classes, junior Corey Jantzen and sophomore Walter Peppelman both reached the finals. Sophomore Adam Hogue, another Crimson standout, fought through to the semifinals but fell to an Old Dominion opponent and finished fourth overall in his weight class.

“I think we wrestled well,” Jantzen said. “I think we’ve shown a lot of progress since September when we started working out. We’re getting better in a couple of areas, and everyone competed well.”

Wrestling at 149 lbs., Jantzen almost capped off his return in the perfect way. After missing most of the 2008-09 season due to injury and taking the next year off from college, there were questions about how the Harvard wrestler would perform in his first event back in a Crimson singlet.

But Jantzen put many of those questions to rest with his performance yesterday. The junior cruised through his first three bouts to the semifinals, earning bonus points along the way. He pinned his first two opponents easily and earned a major decision in the next round.

Continuing his dominance, he crushed his opponent, Donnie Vinson of Binghamton, in the semifinal. He battled in the final but couldn’t carry the momentum from his earlier rounds to pull off the victory. He fell to No. 2 and defending 141-lb. NCAA Champion Kyle Dake of Cornell narrowly in a 2-0 decision.

“I think I performed well for my first tournament back,” Jantzen said. “Honestly, I’m not satisfied, though. I had to shake out some cobwebs and get used to competing again. There’s still room for improvement, but it was a great start.”

Peppelman progressed through the tournament in a similar fashion as Jantzen, pinning his competitor in the first round and winning two major decisions in the next two rounds. In just those three rounds, he outscored his opponents, 31-3.

Peppelman continued to roll, earning a spot in the semifinals against the Big Red’s Jesse Shanaman. He dominated his opponent in a 10-0 major decision to face another Cornell opponent, DJ Meagher. Try as he might, Peppelman could not defeat Meagher and dropped a 4-2 decision in the final.

“I think that I wrestled well,” Peppelman said. “There are still things I need to change and work on, but it was a good place to start from, and I’m hoping to improve during the year.”

Hogue (165) managed to make it to the semifinals, just one step shy of matching his Harvard teammates. He pinned his opponent in the first round in 1:06 and won the next two matches to reach the semifinals.

Hogue dropped that match to Daniel Rivera of Old Dominion and also lost an 8-1 bout to Binghamton’s Matt Kaylor in the third-place consolation matchup. He finished in fourth place with a 4-2 record for the competition.

After a successful freshman campaign, sophomore Steven Keith also opened up his season in an impressive fashion. The 125-pounder lost in the first round to Penn’s Mark Rappo but rebounded quickly with three consolation wins. Rappo stopped his run again in the wrestlebacks with a 9-7 decision.

Another Crimson rookie, freshman Cameron Croy (184), was victorious in his first two rounds, but fell to Binghamton’s Nate Schiedel in the following bout. In the wrestlebacks, he won his first matchup but eventually fell to Lehigh’s Keith Bailey, 4-2. Other Harvard wrestlers who managed to pick up wins included sophomore Nick Brazeau (165), junior Bryan Panzano (184), and senior Michael Sadler (174).

After a strong showing from many of the wrestlers in individual action, Harvard competes in its first dual tournament next weekend, again in Binghamton, N.Y. This time, the Crimson takes on tougher competition, facing Penn State, Michigan State, and Eastern Michigan.

“We prepare for every competition and match like it’s a national finals match,” Jantzen said. “There’s not much different we’re going to do. As for things under our control, we need to make sure our bodies are well and stay focused.”

—Staff writer Steven T. A. Roach can be reached at sroach@fas.harvard.edu.