There will be no edition of The Diamondback this Friday due to turkey-related festivities but that has not stopped winter athletic programs in College Park from continuing their season. And it certainly won’t stop me from bringing devoted wrestling followers a weekend preview.
The excitement from upsetting Cornell last week and ascending into most publications’ Top 5 is beginning to wear off. And for coach Kerry McCoy, that is probably a good thing because the schedule doesn’t get any easier.
The No. 5 Terps (3-0) are heading to Troy, N.Y. this weekend for the Northeast Duals and what looks to be three more difficult matches.
The team will face Northern Colorado first at 9:15 a.m, and will end against No. 13 Lehigh at 3:15 p.m., with a match against No. 11 Central Michigan sandwiched in between.
For a breakdown of each match follow me past the jump.
Maryland v. Northern Colorado
“Similar to Drexel only a little better” is how McCoy described the talent of Bears, an upstart team looking to make a name for itself this weekend.
This season Northern Colorado hasn’t even competed in a team match and thus, have no official record. But most of their wrestlers have seen action in either the Cowboy Open or the Northern Colorado Open which they host.
As one might expect, they fared much better in their home tournament than in the Cowboy Open. At the Cowboy, held on the campus of the University of Wyoming, the team had five wrestlers place, but no champions.
Eight days later they had two title winners on their own mats against lesser competition.
Unfortunately this makes them tough to gauge. McCoy spoke highly of them and with a great deal of respect, but no coach in their right mind would diss an opponent in the week leading up to the match.
On paper, the Terps should be the heavy favorite in this one. The Bears have some talent, but unfortunately for them some of their best wrestlers will be matched with some of Maryland’s cream of the crop.
The match to keep an eye on will be at 125 pounds, where Terp James Knox has had an roller-coaster beginning to his season. Knox will likely face NCU’s Tony Mustari, who is a nationally ranked wrestler and a senior.
Maryland v. Central Michigan
It might not be the match to watch of the weekend – that honor belongs to Lehigh as I will explain later – but it could be the toughest.
Up and down the roster the Chippewas are loaded with experience and talent. Just like Northern Colorado, Central Michigan’s resume is relatively light in the sense their season has barely started.
They did hit the ground running however, competing in a very difficult Eastern Michigan Open and then demolishing an underrated Tennessee-Chattanooga squad 32-6. Chattanooga only scored those six points because Central Michigan forfeited at 141 pounds.
Don’t expect that this weekend as Tom Borelli’s team will be raring to bring down a top program. They boast nationally ranked wrestlers in all but two weight classes, something the Terps can’t match.
In an interesting twist, Terp star Hudson Taylor – who got a double dose of highly ranked Cam Simaz of Cornell last weekend and won both times – will be facing Eric Simaz, the lower ranked yet still talented older brother of Cam.
The key could be endurance. When the two teams face off at 1:15 p.m., the Chippewas will have already wrestled in two matches, including against No. 18 Virginia. The Terps on the other hand will have only faced Northern Colorado.
This could be a case of whoever is fresher.
Maryland v. Lehigh
Brace yourselves folks because there is just so much information and so many different story lines in this matchup that make it ripe for long, analytical previews.
McCoy started with the fact that Lehigh nipped the Terps, 21-15, last season in Bethlehem. But the budding rivalry runs a lot deeper than that.
The Mountain Hawks are coached by Pat Santoro who, until two seasons ago, had been coaching the Terps. In Santoro’s five years at the helm of the program the Terps finished 48-41-1 and led the team to their first conference title in 1973 that culminated in him being awared ACC Coach of the Year.
Then, just as the program looked to be taking off, Santoro accepted the head gig at Lehigh, where he had spent nine seasons as an assistant before coming to Maryland.
I will let McCoy explain to you the significance of that decision.
“These guys were pretty upset when coach Santoro left. They were making progress and they kinda felt abandoned but they understand the situation and his decision. The match last year was supposed to be held our place but it just didn’t work out. But for our seniors to go out with a win against Lehigh is huge, especially considering the emotions of last year and having their former head coach out there…so it’s a big deal.”
There is also the fact McCoy and Santoro are about as close as two coaches at different schools can be, they even recently swapped baby clothes when Santoro and his wife had a baby boy right around the same time McCoy and his wife had a baby girl.
Santoro coached McCoy his freshman year at Penn State before moving a little farther East to become an assistant at Lehigh. Then McCoy joined Santoro on the Mountain Hawks’ sideline for five seasons, from 2000-2005.
Santoro also played a pretty big role in extracting McCoy from Stanford and the California sun, and returning him to the East Coast. According to McCoy, Santoro called him after accepting the head spot at Lehigh and mentioned to him that Maryland might be the perfect fit.
With all these connections, McCoy and Santoro have become very close friends, talking every couple of weeks, until they play each other
“Its one of the most awkward relationships, up until the match,” McCoy said. “Usually when you talk to your friends in coaching you ask about certain guys, but when we talk and there is a match, we want to make sure we aren’t doing anything unethical.”
McCoy also has plenty of ties to some of the wrestlers in Bethlehem as well. There are still a few remaining players that McCoy actually coached during his time, but there are plenty others who were recruited by him as well.
Then there is the ridiculously tangled web of relationships with the Lehigh assistants which, for better or worse, brings up shades of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Again I will let McCoy explain.
“Brad Dillon, who is an assistant coach there, I coached him when I was at Lehigh as well, and he was an assistant here for a little while. John Hughes was my teammate at Penn State. Jason Kutz and I trained together and lived together in Colorado Springs, so there is a lot of connections.”
If you head doesn’t hurt yet you are a better man than I am.
All in all in should be an exciting and challenging weekend. If the Terps come away with only one win, they could undo the impressiveness of the Cornell win, and if they come away with two wins it will be considered a good weekend.
But three wins and continuing an undefeated season are really the only goals and expectations the team has. Pretty much everyone I spoke to gave the same “going in we expect to win every match we wrestle in” quote, which is a lot of talk but also a good attitude to have.
Oh and don’t forget to read Monday’s edition of The Diamondback as school will be back and my turkey will have fully digested, so there will be an in-depth recap to enjoy.
Michael Lemaire is the ‘09-’10 Terrapin wrestling beat writer. He can be reached at lemairedbk@gmail.com.