Keith, Peppelman Earn All-American Honors

In the NCAA Wrestling Championships from March 15 to 17 in St. Louis, Mo., the Harvard wrestling team experienced emotions on both sides of the spectrum.

On the one hand, junior Steven Keith, who was ranked No. 11 at the 133-pound weight class, defeated the sixth-ranked grappler on the first day of competition before finishing in eighth place to merit All-American honors.

No. 4-ranked junior co-captain Walter Peppelman, meanwhile, lost his first contest of the tournament but won four straight matches in the Wrestlebacks before falling to No. 6-ranked James Fleming in the 157-pound weight class. That performance also led to an eighth-place finish and his second All-American honors.

While unranked co-captain Corey Jantzen, who was sidelined most of the season due to injury, upset No. 10 Cam Tessari of Ohio State University to open up the tournament, subsequent losses to the No. 7- and No. 4-ranked opponents kept Jantzen off of the podium.

The Crimson’s final grappler, freshman James Fox, did not win a match in the 197-pound class, but he wrestled two close matches that proved him worthy of his at-large bid.

As a team, Harvard went 9-10 for the tournament, landing the team in 30th place out of 64 colleges with 17.0 points.

Jantzen went 1-2 over the three days, and his shoulder injury proved problematic. Though he didn’t place in the tournament, the senior left his imprint.

“[Jantzen] is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met—works his ass off,” Keith said. “It’s unfortunate that he never had a full season without injuries, but he’s someone I look up to, and I know he’s a little disappointed, but he’s impacted the wrestling world in a way that he doesn’t realize.”

Fox wrestled in two tight matches in his first NCAA tournament, losing to the No. 8 seed, 12-8, before falling, 4-1, in the first round of the Wrestlebacks.

“Just being a freshman, he didn’t quite have the experience under his belt, but he’ll be back, and he’ll do well,” Keith said.

“I think, after a good summer, a couple more months training, and getting used to college wresting, he’s going to do really well next year,” Peppelman agreed. “He showed a lot of promise.”

Keith began with a pigtail match against Geoffrey Alexander from the University of Maryland, whom he defeated, 8-0, and then went on to get the decisions over University of Oklahoma’s Jordan Keller and No. 6 Devin Carter from Virginia Tech, 8-4 and 8-6, respectively.

The upset over Carter was a milestone for Keith and epitomized his success in the tournament.

“[Keith] probably wrestled the best match of his career against Devin Carter,” Peppelman said. “Carter is a very tough wrester, and Steven just dominated him from start to finish. He really wrestled a fabulous tournament.”

In the quarterfinals, Keith’s hopes at a national championship were dashed when he was pinned by No. 3 Tony Ramos from the University of Iowa at 1:37.

In his first match in the Wrestlebacks, Keith had the 5-3 decision over University of Central Michigan’s Zach Horan, but he was pinned in his next contest by Chris Dardanes from the University of Minnesota at 7:48 to send him to the seventh-place match.

In a tight battle between Keith and No. 8 Zachery Stevens, Stevens managed to get the upper hand in a 13-11 final that placed Keith in eighth.

Nevertheless, Keith’s finish earned him All-American honors for the first time in his career.

“I’m never really satisfied,” Keith said. “I would have liked to place higher, but becoming an All-American was one of my goals, so I’m pretty pleased with that.”

Harvard’s other All-American was Peppelman, but Peppelman’s road was different than Keith’s. Peppelman was upset in his first match of the NCAA tournament by unranked David Bonin from the University of Northern Iowa, who got the fall at 2:55. He then won four straight matches in the Wrestlebacks—three decisions and a pin at 2:29—before Fleming got the major decision, 9-0.

Peppelman’s final contest of the year came against No. 11 James Green from the University of Nebraska. The junior was unable to come out on top and lost the match, 9-1.

“I didn’t wrestle my best,” Peppelman said. “But I got the job done, which is what matters. Obviously I don’t feel like I wrestled up to my potential, but I wrestled good enough, so I’m very happy about that.”

Keith had much admiration for his co-captain, who notched All-American status for the second year in a row.

“Being a two-time All-American is not something that not many people can say,” Keith said.

—Staff writer Taryn I. Kurcz can be reached at tkurcz13@college.harvard.edu.