By Julia Duggan
Staff Writer
The Lions showed their strength this weekend at the NCAA Division III Championships. Out of the 70 schools that competed, the College tied for 29th with Ohio Northern University. Both colleges scored 14 points.
Two out of the six wrestlers for the College made All-American status. This is the third year in a row that wrestlers at the College have earned this status. Michel Conklin (149) and Daniel Surich (184) earned the titles in their weight classes during the national competition.
This season has been filled with a number of accomplishments for the wrestling team.
To get to the NCAA Division III Championship, the team had to compete at Mideast Regionals, where the College set a historic record by winning the Mideast Regionals in back-to-back seasons. To compete at the championships, wrestlers qualify at the regional tournaments. The College had six wrestlers qualify and three of them won individual titles for their weight classes, sending the second most wrestlers to the NCAA Championships since 2005.
The wrestlers that won individual titles at the regionals tournament this year are Domenic Difancescantonio (141), Quinn Haddad (197) and Thomas Marretta (285). The others that qualified as runners-up in their weight classes are Conklin, Matt Sacco (157) and Surich. To have individual wrestlers qualify for the NCAA Championships, individual wrestles must finish first or second in their weight class.
At the NCAA Championships, the Lions looked calm and focused. Depending on how the first match went for each wrestler, they would be put into one of two brackets for each weight class. The competition was broken up into four wrestling sessions over two days.
The first matches of the tournament took place on Friday and determined which wrestlers competed in which bracket. Friday evening held the quarterfinal matches. Saturday morning held the semifinal matches as well as the final matches for the consolation bracket. Saturday evening held all the final matches for the titles.
For the first session of the tournament, the College had four wrestlers go into the consolation bracket and two wrestlers in the main tournament. Difrancescantonio lost 8-2, Sacco lost 9-2, Surich lost 5-3 and Haddad lost 15-3. Conklin won 13-4 and Marretta won 4-0. Conklin was against a wrestler from the U.S. Coast Guard and won his match by completing several takedowns, one nearfall, a reversal and an escape. Marretta won his match against a wrestler from Lycoming College by several escapes and a takedown. He also prevented his opponent from scoring any points in the match.
For the second session in the evening on Friday, both Conklin and Marretta were eliminated in the brackets, as each lost their match, 2-0. Disfrancescantonio and Haddad were eliminated from the consolation bracket after losing their matches. Sacco and Surich won their matches by one point and moved onto the next round to compete. Multiple matches were held in the Friday evening session and both Sacco and Surich lost the next matches they had. Sacco lost by four points and Surich lost by two points. Since the two wrestlers had made it so far in the bracket, they were not eliminated and had a match Saturday morning to decide their placement. Both earned eighth place in the tournament.
This tournament concludes the season for the College’s wrestling team. Their overall record for the 2021-2022 season is 11-1 and the team placed well in multiple tournaments they competed in throughout the season.
