Central Michigan University Athletics
Wrestling Competes At Virginia Duals
1/8/2001 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
Jan. 8, 2001
Complete Release in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader
THE TEAM--The Central Michigan University wrestling team heads to Hampton, Va., Jan. 12-13, to compete in the Virginia Duals. CMU heads into the weekend after dropping a 21-12 decision to No. 11-ranked Michigan State University on Jan. 5, in East Lansing. The team rebounded to a second place finish at the Hampton Inn "Duels" on Sunday, Jan. 7, posting a 2-1 record. This weekend's dual tournament marks the last non-conference competition of the season for CMU. The team opens up the Mid-American Conference (MAC) schedule on Jan. 21, at Ohio University.
THE COACH--Tom Borrelli enters his 10th season as head coach of the Chippewas. CMU is 96-58-5 overall and 34-11 in the MAC under Borrelli. The veteran coach has been named MAC "Coach of the Year" four times and was tabbed "National Coach of the Year" by two organizations in 1998. He has coached 27 MAC champions and 11 All-Americans. Central has finished in the top 10 nationally in two of the last three seasons.
HAMPTON INN "DUELS" REVIEW--The Central Michigan University Chippewas (6-4) went 2-1 at the Hampton Inn "Duels" on Sunday afternoon at Rose Arena. The record was good enough to earn second place at the annual event. CMU began the afternoon by defeating The Citadel and Findlay University. The team's lone loss came at the hands of No. 14-ranked Edinboro.
The No. 14-ranked Edinboro Fighting Scots captured the Hampton Inn "Duels" crown going 3-0. The Citadel Bulldogs grabbed third place with a 1-2 mark, followed by Findlay University who went 0-3.
Top performers for the Chippewas were Ahmad Sanders (Flint/Sr.) who went 3-0 at 125-pounds, Mark Rusz (St. Charles/So.) 3-0 with a pin at 133, Jeff Pangborn (Durand/Fr.) 3-0 with a pin at 184 and Jason Mester (Mineral Point, Wis./Fr.) who went 2-0 with a pin at the 141 weight class. All four wrestlers were selected to the All-Tournament team in their respected weight classes.
HEAD COACH TOM BORRELLI ON THE HAMPTON INN "DUELS"--"In the first two matches I could see our wrestlers executing some of the things we were working on in practice, and that was nice to see. In the last match against Edinboro, even though we didn't win as a team, I think it is really important to wrestle teams like that because it points out some of our weaknesses and things we have to work on. I feel like we are competing harder right now than we did earlier in the year when we wrestled ranked teams."
BORRELLI ON THE VIRGINIA DUALS--"We are going to have to be ready to go. There are going to be some quality teams competing in the tournament. At least five of the 16 teams are nationally ranked. It's going to be a real good event for us and it should be fun."
