After three dual meets this past weekend, the Virginia men's wrestling team has only one more open tournament before a four-week break in December. Heading into the Nittany Lion Open this weekend the Cavaliers are 7-1 in dual meets and dominated their only open individual tournament. The individual and team aspects of coach Steve Garland's system seem to be falling into place.
"This year we're coming together, I feel, as brothers," freshman Michael Chaires said. "It's really good to see everybody supporting you, even guys competing for your spot are out there supporting you."
This development gave the team the confidence going into the Northeast Duals that it could win two, if not all three meets.
"Especially with Lehigh, [we were] really confident that we could go in there and win," Chaires said. "At every point we just wanted to prove to everybody that we're a top program and that we can compete."
The victories Virginia earned in two of its duals reflected the strides the team has taken this season. The Cavaliers took seven of 10 matches against Clarion University, including three falls. Two of those falls came back-to-back from junior Rocco Caponi and redshirt sophomore Brent Jones when Virginia led 15-10, and pushed the Cavaliers to their 30-10 victory.
"I was very proud of the big boys on the team," Caponi said. "We got back-to-back pins ... and Jones literally ripped the guy's head off with a headlock that was just amazing. And Calvin [Cardillo] really stepped it up and pounded the guy at the end."
The highlight of the day for Virginia was the 23-12 victory against traditional powerhouse Lehigh University. The Cavaliers took six of 10 matches, including the first of two pins for Jones and the first of junior Eric Albright's three victories on the day. The two teams matched up well, and seven matches were decided by two points or less.
"Lehigh was definitely the highlight of the weekend," Garland said. "When we think of wrestling and all the history behind it, Lehigh is one of the first names that comes up, so beating them was a huge milestone not just for the program because it's the first time we've ever beaten them, but also for myself and for my staff."
Virginia's dual-meet loss came at the hands of then-No. 5 University of Michigan, and the 25-10 result could have been a lot closer even though eight of Virginia's 10 wrestlers were freshmen or sophomores.
"This is the thing, and you always hear stuff like this on ESPN with football coaches and you feel like they're making excuses ... because at the end of the day we lost," Garland said. "But you've got to understand, I've got eight out of 10 guys in the lineup that are either sophomores or freshmen. Nobody would expect us to even be on the mat with those guys at the beginning of the year."
There were several very close matches between the Cavaliers and the Wolverines. Freshman Nick Nelson lost in overtime, Chaires lost 4-0 to the current-No. 1 165-pound wrestler in the country and Jones lost via fall well into the second period of a match he was winning. The Cavaliers could have had significantly more success if a few moves had gone their way.
"They're the No. 5 team in the country and if [Nelson] -- who got the only takedown of the match and still lost in overtime -- if he wins that match and [Jones], who was winning at the time he got caught with a spladle, wins that match like he's supposed to, the match comes down to heavyweight," Garland said. "We probably still would have lost the dual, but still, if you can wrestle the No. 5 team in the country and it comes down to the last bout, that's as good as you can ever hope to expect with the team we have."
The high-profile individual match of the weekend was the contest between No. 9 Caponi and Lehigh sophomore then-No. 12 David Craig. Caponi won the match 2-1 in its closing seconds and went on to win all three of his matches. Garland said Caponi has beaten Craig, the top overall recruit at any weight class coming out of high school before, but it was the way in which Caponi won that was significant.
"I mean, we expected Rocco to win; to be honest with you, we always expect Rocco to win when he goes out there, but he gritted it out," Garland said. "He was losing and he won with, I want to say, 10 seconds left. It was awesome. He just gutted it out and made it happen and got it."
Caponi's performance this weekend exemplifies the style of Virginia wrestling at this point in the season, a combination of talent with sound technique and the will to win. Caponi said his match with Craig was very tactical, and he had to make sure he stepped in the right place and did not get caught out of position. Garland stressed that in dual meets, emotion and intensity are everything.
Regardless of the measure of either, what matters is that the Cavaliers are winning (and losing) well, and setting themselves up for a successful rest of the season.
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