Weekly Wrestling Release
Buffalo Bulldozes Edinboro, 18-16
BUFFALO, NY - Keyed by a fast start, the Buffalo wrestling team avenged an earlier loss to Edinboro with an 18-16 win Sunday evening. The win was Buffalo's first win against the Fighting Scots since 1982 and just the fourth win in the all-time series between the two schools.
Motivated by a disappointing loss to Edinboro in the seventh-place match at the Virginia Duals just a week ago, the Bulls came out in impressive fashion, with Sean Walton pinning Bijan Banks just over a minute in to their 125-pound match. The pin put Buffalo up 6-0 early and was Walton's third pin in the past four dual meets.
Chris Conti controlled the tempo in the 141 pound match, winning easily 6-2. In the premier match of the night, Desi Green took on Torsten Gillespie, who came into the dual meet ranked eleventh in the nation at 149 pounds. Green dominated the match and won easily, 5-1. Mark Lewandowski and John-Martin Cannon each earned decisions to push the Buffalo lead to 18-3. Cannon had one of the team's higher-scoring matches, recording four takedowns in a 9-3 win. Lewandowski had two takedowns and rode his opponent out en route to a 6-2 victory at 157 pounds.
Edinboro would not go quietly though, again making a comeback by winning the last four matches to tighten the score to 18-16, but the fast Buffalo run was the difference, especially Walton's critical pin in the opening match. The win over the Scots is the first for head coach in Jim Beichner in his time at Buffalo.
Up Next
The win moves the team to 7-5 in dual meets, with non-conference dual meet competition coming to a close. Next weekend will be the final regular-season tournament team as it travels to Binghamton for the New York State Intercollegiate Championships. The all-day event will run on Saturday and Sunday. It will feature the top teams in the state and some of the top teams in the country, including Cornell, Army and Binghamton.
Giant Killers
Since Christmas, the Bulls have beaten the defending Colonial League champions (Binghamton), the defending ACC champion (Virginia) and the five-time defending EWL champions (Edinboro). That marks one of the best runs of dual meet wins in the program's D-I history.