The Ursinus College wrestling team looks put a disappointing dual season behind it and outperform expectations at the 25th annual Centennial Conference championship on Saturday at Washington and Lee.
The Bears finished just 1-6 in conference dual matches in 2018, but with a promising crop of newcomers alongside a defending CC champion and another runner-up, head coach Bill Racich's squad has the pieces in place to finish in a loftier position than the regular-season results would suggest.
Ursinus has been the gold standard for wrestling in the Centennial since the league's inception. With 11 conference titles, the Bears have seven more than any other program, and their 56 individual champions are still comfortably ahead of McDaniel's 43.
In recent years, Stevens has taken up the top dog mantle. The Ducks, ranked 17th in the nation, are the favorites to claim a fourth consecutive CC crown. Ursinus was runner-up a year ago and seeks its first league title since 2014.
The championship seeding meeting takes place Friday at 6 p.m. and the draws will be finalized after that. The draws are not official until after weigh-ins on Saturday morning.
Wrestling gets underway at 10 a.m. The finals begin at approximately 6 p.m. and will be livestreamed here.
A weight-by-weight preview of the conference tournament:
125
The Bears can expect to pile up points in the lightest weight class, where senior Chris Tan is the defending champion and the favorite to make it a repeat. Tan is 18-2 on the season and a perfect 7-0 in CC bouts, the closest a 5-2 victory over Stevens' Joey Borai. Last year's CC Scholar-Athlete of the Year, Tan is riding a 15-match winning streak and has not lost since December 1.
Borai, who finished 6-1 in CC competition, is likely to be Tan's top challenger. Johns Hopkins' Christian Vallis and Gettysburg's Lenny Ogozalek may also factor in the medal race, though Tan defeated those two by a combined margin of 28-1 in the regular season.
133
Freshman Ray Calderaio gets his first taste of championship wrestling following a solid campaign that culminated in a 13-9 overall record.
Calderaio was 1-2 in CC competition, closing the season with a pin at McDaniel. He now has the difficult task of going against a loaded field that includes the nation's top-ranked wrestler in undefeated Troy Stanich of Stevens. Johns Hopkins' Ricky Cavallo, Muhlenberg's Austin Sherman, and Merchant Marine's Tyler Craig are also in the medal hunt.
Calderaio lost 12-0 to Stanich and 19-1 to Cavallo in the regular season.
141
The Bears will not have an entry at 141.
149
Senior Donte McCarthy gets the call at 149 for his first CC championship experience. McCarthy is 1-5 on the year and has faced the class' top two contenders in Stevens' Dylan Van Sickell and Gettysburg's Colin Devlin. Van Sickell pinned McCarthy in the third period of their meeting, and Devlin defeated McCarthy twice – but McCarthy made major strides between the two bouts, challenging Devlin to a 9-6 decision last weekend after being pinned in just 18 seconds two months prior.
157
Junior Jarret DiGiantomasso steps into the huge shoes left by Derek Arnold '17, who won this championship a year ago on the way to earning All-America honors with a fourth-place showing at nationals. DiGiantomasso comes in with a 5-6 overall mark for Ursinus, and like McCarthy has taken on several of the conference's best.
Stevens' Zach Wilhelm, the runner-up at 149 a year ago, is ranked fourth in the county and will receive plenty of competition from Hopkins freshman Dominick Reyes and W&L sophomore Shane Conners. DiGiantomasso lost to Conners, 6-5, in overtime.
165
Junior Zachary Goranson was 0-6 in CC matches this season, but tied for second on the team with seven pins. Stevens' Thomas Poklikuha and Gettysburg's Colin Kowalski are the favorites in this class, and each defeated Goranson by technical fall. Muhlenberg's Dylan Schwartz was a robust 28-10 during the regular campaign.
174
Junior Anthony Cutrufello will compete for the Bears after a 9-9 regular season that included five pins and a 1-3 standing in conference action.
Merchant Marine's Joshua Glantzman was perfect in league bouts and is the likely top seed, while W&L's Brandon Lefore and Stevens' Josh Smith will contend for high spots.
Cutrufello was competitive against two of them, losing 11-5 to Smith and 4-0 to Lefore.
Ursinus has not won this weight class since Kyle Capella in 2004.
184
Freshman Ben Maack was one of the conference's breakout stars in 2018, going 19-7 overall with a 5-2 mark in CC play and a team-leading 10 pins. Maack won the Fall Brawl championship at 184 and comes in red-hot, having won five of his last six matches via fall.
Johns Hopkins junior Isaac Morales is the projected top seed, and Maack would certainly love another crack at a wrestler who defeated him three times during the regular season. Morales topped Mack twice at the Messiah Invitational (5-3 and by pin) and registered a 5-2 victory in the teams' conference dual. Maack could also run into W&L sophomore Kurtis Hahn, who defeated Maack 6-5 just over a month ago.
197
Senior Deon Edmond looks to cap a strong final season by making a run at the conference tournament.
Edmond, who was 13-7 overall, was 3-3 in CC duals. All three of his setbacks came against title contenders here – Muhlenberg's Gennaro Cerminara, Gettysburg's Anthony Puca, and Stevens' Colin Myles. Cerminara defeated Edmond twice – once by fall, the other by 14-2 major decision – and Myles pinned him, but Edmond took Puca to the wire in a 4-2 overtime loss.
Merchant Marine's Blake Bunce is the likely top seed in this bracket.
285
Junior William McGinley looks to become the Bears' first heavyweight champion since Matt Williams in 2008 – and just the second overall – but will have to navigate a loaded group of grapplers headlined by Gettysburg's Paul Triandafilou and W&L's Matthew Kaminer. Those two faced off in the final a year ago, with the Bullets' star coming up with the gold.
McGinley (12-6 overall) was 4-3 in CC action this year, one of those losses an overtime thriller against Kaminer. He fell by a 12-0 count to Triandafilou and by a controversial 6-5 score to Muhlenberg's Scott Schaeffer, but also owns victories over Stevens' Joe Moreno and McDaniel's Brendan Woody.