The Virginia wrestlers have a big weekend ahead of them.
They host a quad meet against James Madison, Cornell and The Citadel in Memorial Gymnasium tomorrow. The 9-5 Cavaliers look to improve their overall record with these non-ACC matches.
Tomorrow's matches should prove to be tough competition. Cornell is 8-6 overall and undefeated in the Ivy League, and The Citadel proves impressive with a record of 8-2 overall, 3-0 in the Southern Conference. James Madison has a more modest mark of 2-15 overall, 1-8 in conference competition. The Cavaliers are prepared for a rough day of competition against all three opponents.
"The matches are going to be tough," junior wrestler Paul Bjorlo said. "JMU is a solid team, but they are pretty young. We should be able to do pretty well against them. The Citadel and Cornell are both top-25 teams, so if we want a shot at beating them, we are going to have to bring our best this weekend."
Cornell recently won its 25th Ivy League title, its third in four years, defeating Brown 33-3 in their final conference match of the season. Freshman Jerry Rinaldi scored a big upset, and senior Matt Greenberg defeated his opponent in an easy 14-2 win. Cornell is on a major winning streak this season, also dominating the lower weight class matches.
"Cornell, they are ranked something like 12th in the country, so that makes them solid all over," Virginia coach Lenny Bernstein said. "They have some really good individuals. They've got a No. 1 ranked guy in the country at 133, so that will be a very cool match to see two No.1 guys in the country wrestling in the same gym."
The Citadel comes off an impressive 27-13 Southern Conference win against No. 25 Chattanooga. Scoring big wins for the Bulldogs were senior Jordan Evertt, junior Billy Linane and sophomore Dan Thompson, who all pinned their opponents. 14th ranked junior Ryan McClester also defeated his opponent and helped the Bulldogs to their latest victory.
In their last dual match against Appalachian State and Rider University, James Madison was defeated by both opponents. Despite the two pins by junior Justin Gronlie and sophomore Chris Cvitan, the Dukes could not pull out a win.
Virginia is riding the momentum of Wednesday's win over Maryland coming into these matches. With that victory, the Cavaliers gained their third ACC win of the season, improving their conference record to 3-1. Senior Scott Moore, ranked No. 1 in the country, improved his personal record to 41-0, and Bjorlo beat his opponent by a score of 11-1. Also scoring big wins for Virginia were junior Kevin Collier, senior Tim Foley and freshman Aaron Martin.
Virginia has proven it can handle three matches in the same afternoon. The Cavaliers went 2-1 in their last quad meet, including a win over conference foe North Carolina. They look to continue their quad meet success tomorrow, the last time they hit the mat before the ACC Tournament March 6.
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