Oftentimes, one huge play can be the difference between victory and defeat -- that was the case for the Virginia wrestling team in their 20-15 victory against UNC-Greensboro Saturday.
With Virginia trailing 9-7 going into the sixth match, their outcome looked bleak with senior Damian Johnson trailing 4-1. That is, until he pinned Greensboro's Mark Ring at 2:16 to give the Cavaliers six points and a lead they would not relinquish.
"Damian Johnson won the dual meet for us," Virginia coach Steve Garland said. "If he doesn't get that pin, we lose the match based on momentum alone. That momentum changed the entire view of the match. It gave our kids a kick start, and I can't give enough credit to him. We owe the whole match to him basically."
Even though he was happy with the victory, Garland said there is still plenty of room for improvement.
"If we are going to win big matches, we can't make silly mistakes like we did," Garland said. "At 149 pounds, we had the winning takedown but gave up a reversal with literally a second left on the clock. At 125 pounds, we worked on that exact position that he got scored on in overtime. There are some things that are silly mistakes that need to be minimized if we are going to do some great things as a dual-meet team."
There were other Cavaliers besides Johnson that provided solid performances. One such performance came from sophomore Rocco Caponi, who recorded a technical fall 14-0 over Greensboro's Scott Snyder.
"If more people start wrestling hard like Rocco, the wins will keep on coming," sophomore Eric Albright said.
Albright was also very impressive, scoring a major decision 12-3 over Greensboro's Mitchell Johnson.
"I thought I was a little bit sluggish," Albright said. "I'm not going to feel the best every week, but I have a big match on Friday night against a North Carolina kid, so this week I am going to be doing everything that I can get myself ready for the best performance possible."
Sophmore Mike Sewell and senior Kyle Narkiewicz, who was banged up in his match, also posted victories for the Cavaliers. Even with these victories, Virginia doesn't want to be content with their victory.
"We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard than 20-15," Garland said. "We need to win by more -- we need to win some closer matches."
Virginia starts the ACC season Friday against North Carolina, who has won the last two ACC championships.
"We just have to keep fighting every day in the room," Garland said. "That's exactly what I told the guys after the match. We are not going to spend a lot of time on technique. We are going to spend a lot of time battling. There is a reason why they call live wrestling 'combat.' We are fortunate that we get to go in there and go as hard as we possibly can on each other. That is the only way to get better in this sport."
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