1. sports
2. wrestling

CCWW Sports Report No. 227
(March 24, 2015)
by
Rich Coyle ‘68
My advice for the week: Don’t get into street fight with Gabe Dean ’17 or Brian Realbuto ’17 or a sword
fight with their classmate, Victoria Wines ’17.
Brian Realbuto ‘17
Silver
Gabe Dean ‘17
Gold
Victoria Wines
Bronze
Cornell had waited two years for an individual NCAA champion in any sport—Kyle Dake ’13 was the last,
winning the NCAA wrestling title at 165 pounds on March 23, 2013—until Dean won the title Saturday night
at 184 pounds. And for a while it looked like the Big Red would only have to wait less than 24 hours for its
next NCAA title, and its first ever in fencing. Ms. Wines, an epeeist who won the gold medal at Eastern
Regionals two weeks ago, led the field at the NCAA championships in Columbus, Ohio, after the roundrobin was completed and went into the final four as the top seed. Alas, she could not take home the gold
again, but her third-place finish was the highest ever for a Cornellian since women’s fencing became an
NCAA sport.
Congratulations to all twelve Cornell athletes who qualified for these two national tournaments and
especially to the All-Americans, Dean and Wines, naturally, but also wrestlers Realbuto (the NCAA runnerup at 157), Nahshon Garrett ’16 (who took 5th at 125), and Chris Villalonga ’15 (the sixth-place finisher
at 149). For Villalonga and Wines, it’s their first A-A honor; Dean and Realbuto have won the honor twice,
and Garrett is now a three-timer (with a year to go and a chance to become Cornell’s sixth four-time
wrestling All-American).
Also, speaking of All-Americans, Brianne Jenner ’15, who came back to school after her one-year hiatus
with the Canadian Olympic hockey team, earned All-American honors for the second time. The Big Red
did not get the NCAA women’s hockey title we all wished for but Brianne did everything she could.
Finally, still on the subject of Cornell All-Americans, past and present, I’m writing this post on the Alaska
flight back from St. Louis where I spent 24 hours, give or take a few minutes, in Scottrade Center watching
from start to finish the NCAA wrestling championships while seated with the Cornell wrestling group. It
was fun and I’ll give you a quick rundown in a second, but one thing the group does is provide T-shirts so
we can all display a sea of Red (or White, as the color of the day changes) as we cheer on the Big Red.
This year’s white T-shirts had images of the Cornell All-Americans going back to the 1950s printed on the
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back. At the post-tournament Cornell party I ran into one of the older ones, my classmate, Dick Minekime
’68. I didn’t know Dick in college but his 1967-68 co-captain, Pete Woodworth ’68, was also there and we
were on the same floor as freshmen and did some catching up.
Observations on the championships: I’d been to St. Louis before but this was by far my most extended
stay. (Sherilyn had been there a few years ago for a conference, stayed at the same hotel, and knew the
ropes a bit.) I give the city’s food scene a B-minus based on my limited exposure—it’s really hard to find a
good time to eat out during these championships. We did not find any neat new restaurants like we did in
Des Moines two years ago and the St. Louis specialty foods—toasted ravioli and St. Louis-style pizza—
can be skipped. Actually, I did not skip them, and while the toasted ravioli is not exactly mouth-watering, I
did not find the thin-flatbread St. Louis-style pizza as bad as most out-of-towners seem to. On the plus
side, the food at the Broadway Oyster Bar was good, and the folks who work there were very nice, and
they’re open late, and they have music.
As for the Scottrade Center, which has become a semi-regular home of this event, I’d give it no more than
a C-plus, mostly for the minor annoyances. Like, when they sell you an overpriced bottle of water, they
insist on keeping the cap so you cannot recap it at your seat. To avoid this, we took to smuggling in empty
plastic bottles (with caps) and filling them up at the water fountain (or “bubbler,” as we called it in Rhode
Island). These bottles were not allowed but fortunately the security people, while annoying, were also
incompetent and never found them. My take was that if you showed up with a bag they’d do a cursory
check of the bag and then usually forget to wand you. But they were still annoying. Each day some new
prohibited item would be disclosed. One day it was iPads, and some folks in line ahead of us were turned
away. Since we had no intention of giving up our iPads to store and couldn’t afford the time to return to
the hotel, we did a half-assed job of stuffing them in Sherilyn’s purse and, of course, they were not
discovered. But from then on we were afraid to bring the iPads with us, even though there was no written
arena policy suggesting that iPads were not allowed and I’m pretty sure some bozo just made it up or got it
wrong. Having no iPad was a loss because at times when a Cornell wrestler was on a mat at the other
end from the Cornell section (which seemed to happen about 90% of the time), we could have used the
iPad to see the match better on ESPN3!
As far as the competition went, Cornell finished fifth overall, two points behind fourth-place Missouri. This
was the seventh time in the past eight years that the Red had at least one individual champion and the
sixth top-five finish in the past seven years. The three-days of competition was a bit of a roller-coaster
ride, as Cornell started the Thursday morning session with five straight wins (including a pin by unseeded
Mark Grey ’17 at 133) and won six of its nine matches. The evening did not go as well as Garrett, Grey
and Dylan Palacio ’17 were bumped into the consolation pool and Duke Pickett ’16 was eliminated from
the meet. The Grey and Palacio losses were to higher seeded wrestlers but Nahshon’s loss to an
unseeded wrestler from West Virginia seemed stunning at the time.
Friday morning was mixed, as all three Cornellians won their championship quarterfinal matches, and
Nahshon won twice to stay alive in the wrestlebacks, but Grey and Palacio, and seniors Jace Bennett ’15
and Jacob-Aiken Phillips ’15, the latter competing in his first nationals, were eliminated. But even the
wins were not without drama. In Brian Realbuto’s match with a wrestler from Kent State, Brian fell behind
and then tied it with a series of late take-downs. Brian then won the match with a take-down in the first
sudden-victory period. That was drama enough—but it was just beginning. It turns out that, in the flurry of
scoring at the end of regulation time, the officials failed to score an escape by the Kent State wrestler, who
would have won the match in regulation time. None of this was announced at the arena but it was
apparently on ESPN and around the Cornell section rumors abounded. Maybe we would concede the
match. (Remember the “fifth down” play for which Cornell became the stuff of sportsmanship legend. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Down_Game_(1940); and here’s the video footage:
http://alumni.dartmouth.edu/events/homecoming/VideoTheInfamous5thDownGame.) (Of course, if I had
my iPad I could have been better informed but we won’t go there.) In the end the NCAA—bless their evil,
money-grubbing hearts—took it out of our hands by ruling that the time for protesting had come and gone
and the result announced on the mat would stand. (Side note: to my untrained eye, the officiating
generally was not good. In one match right in front of us the referees missed the fact that the matchwinning take-down (which itself was questionable) occurred a good three seconds after time ran out; it took
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two video reviews, lasting about fifteen minutes, to get the call right, and send the match to overtime. In
the 174-pound final right before Dean’s match, the Penn State wrestler was in the inferior position and
trailing by a point with ten seconds remaining and somehow was awarded two points (for “stalling” and an
illegal hold) and given the victory although he never did escape. No one in the arena except the Penn
State fans liked that call.)
On Friday evening, Realbuto and Dean advanced to the finals and Garrett stayed alive in the
wrestlebacks. Brian, whose tourney ended last year on a bad-luck serious injury, had his second piece of
good luck on the day as his opponent had to take a medical forfeit. However, Brian was ahead 7-2 at the
time. Also on Friday night, the West Virginia wrestler who defeated Nahshon a day earlier pinned his
opponent from Iowa in the first minute of the match to the delight of the Cornell contingent (a) because it
was Iowa and it seems like everyone hates Iowa, and (b) because it made Nahshon’s loss a bit less
inexplicable. Villalonga was the only loser as he was bumped back to the wrestlebacks. (Side note: we
had been anticipating all week a final between Chris and Jason Tsirtsis from Northwestern, Sherilyn’s alma
mater, which would, I feared, strain her acquired loyalties to the Big Red.)
On Saturday morning, Nahshon and Chris both lost in the consolation semifinals, but Nahshon came back
to take fifth, while Chris finished sixth. (It was a successful morning for our clan for another reason, as
both Tsirtsis and Northwestern heavy-weight Mike McMullen each won out to take third place at his
respective weight.)
You know the end result of Saturday evening. Realbuto wrestled before Dean and for a while it looked like
the match might be competitive. But a first-period near take-down that might have changed the
complexion of the match was not called, the non-call was upheld on appeal, and Brian’s opponent, the
undefeated top-seed freshman from Illinois, took over the match. Gabe was pretty much in control in his
match the whole time and clinched the win with a third-period take down.
Final takeaway: The Cornell crowd and atmosphere were great. Each of Cornell’s four All-Americans
came into the stands with us at least once during the meet after a victory to hug family and friends. (The
photo I wish I had been ready to take was of Kyle Dake himself taking a picture of Gabe Dean after the
championship.) The Cornell post-match party was also great. Athletic Director and former coach Andy
Noel, Coach Rob Koll, and all of the assistant coaches spoke, all of the All-Americans, and some senior
wrestlers spoke about their Cornell experiences and told the crowd how grateful they were for the fan
support. They were a very impressive, and very nice, group. Perhaps the highlight was a story told by
Gabe Dean. Gabe’s younger brother Max was injured and missed most of a football season. What Max
took from the experience and passed on to Gabe was the following message (and I’m paraphrasing).
“Don’t ever take anything for granted. Being able to compete in these sports is a privilege you need to
take full advantage of because you never know when that privilege will be taken away.” It was rather a
moving little speech.
Other News
Fencing. Ediona Sera ‘16 and Angelica Gangemi ’16, both competing in the foil, joined Wines in
qualifying for the NCAA championships. Together, the three fencers earned the Big Red a 17th-place
finish. Maybe that doesn’t sound so great but one needs to consider that fencing is treated as a co-ed
sport by the NCAA, although the men and women compete separately, and team scores are determined
by adding the men’s and women’s scores together. A silly system if you ask me, especially since three of
the 25 schools at Nationals do not even have men’s teams. Maybe the NCAA is not only evil and moneygrubbing but also penny-pinching and doesn’t want to pay for two sets of trophies. If just women’s scores
are considered, Cornell would have finished 11th—up four spots (using the same metric) from a year ago.
The Ivies in Winter. This is March and the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball and hockey
tournaments are in various stages of completion. In basketball, the Harvard men almost pulled out a thirdstraight first round upset, but lost by two points to North Carolina. The Princeton women did a bit better,
downing Wisconsin-Green Bay (with POTUS and some of his in-laws in the house) in Round One before
falling to the region’s top seed, Maryland. On the ice, the Harvard women followed up their ECAC tourney
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win over the Big Red by blanking Quinnipiac and upsetting top-seeded B.C. to reach the NCAA final,
before losing to Minnesota. The men’s NCAA tourney starts this weekend with two Ivies in the field,
Harvard, which played its way in by winning the ECAC tournament, and Yale. Even though Cornell lost
lots of other games, the Red actually was 2-1-1 against these teams
Men’s Lacrosse. Results: Beat Penn 10-9 (OT). Season record: 6-2, Ivy record 2-0. For the second
straight game, the Big Red built up a comfortable halftime lead, squandered it in the second half and then
pulled out a win in overtime. Once again, the Red ran into a hot goalie, this time a senior backup who
came in after halftime and proceeded to save nine straight shots before finally giving up one in overtime.
Against Colgate, Dan Lintner ’15 took a feed (from Matt Donovan ’15) and scored the late tying goal.
Against Penn, Lintner got the winner—in the third overtime!—this time off a from Connor Buczek ’15.
The generally plugged-in commenter “VeryRustyRed” on the Laxpower Cornell forum said that he was “not
sure what to make of the team.” I share that sentiment. At times, they look like world beaters; other times,
not so much. Is the message from these games that the Big Red has the fortitude to persevere when
things aren’t going right? Or is the message that they’re a streaky team not living up to their potential? Or
are they simply a good but not great team that we’ve all overrated? Time will tell. Four good signs:
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After three scoreless games, Lintner has 15 goals in 40 shots in his last five games.

Dom Massimilian ’17 won 14 of 22 faceoffs, and picked up 11 ground balls and is now 7th in the
country in faceoff percentage and first in ground balls per game.

Jordan Stevens ’15 continues to play lights-out defense, consistently guarding and shutting down
the other team’s top scorer.

And this is critical, after some shaky outings, Christian Knight ’17 was outstanding in goal on
Saturday, stopping 13 of 22 shots, including two big saves in overtime.
Women’s Lacrosse. Results: Beat Brown 14-6. Season record: 6-2, Ivy Record: 3-0. With
Saturday’s blowout of the Bears, Cornell moved into the top-20 in the Lax Magazine rankings. A trip to
the Hotel California is next as the Big Red will spend spring break playing with more bears (Cal’s
Golden Bears) and go head-to-head with another color (the Stanford Cardinal) before resuming Ivy
League play.
Baseball. Week’s Results: Beat Bucknell 3-0, lost to Bucknell 2-1, 2-1 and 8-7. Season record: 3-11.
The Big Red scored the same number of runs as the Bison but lost three of four games. Therein lies the
problem. Cornell now has an atrocious 1-8 record in one-run games. The pitching, led by Bothell’s Brian
McAfee ’15, has been solid but the hitting and the defense have not. The Red have one more mid-week
game, weather permitting, before they open Ivy League play at home this weekend versus Yale and
Brown.
Softball. Lost to Mt. St. Mary’s 8-5, beat Mt. St. Mary’s 9-7. Season record 3-8. This team’s problem is
the opposite of the men’s. The hitting is there (a respectable team batting average of .307 (66th of 289
teams) and an OPS (if you’re into more advanced stats) of .839) but opponents are batting .331 and
posting an almost obscene .969 OPS. If those numbers were put up by a single team, they would each be
about 20th in the country. Cornell’s ERA of 6.14 is 250th of 289 D-I teams.
Polo. Ending on an up note, I can report that both the men’s and the women’s polo teams won their
regional tournaments and now go to Storrs, Connecticut, in two weeks for Nationals.
March 25 is Cornell’s Day of Giving—Dig Deep! And GO BIG RED!
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