Targum Sports NCAA Wrestling Tournament Wrap 2016

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PERROTTI - WRAP PAGE 2 ASHNAULT - WRAP PAGE 3 DIMITRI RODRIGUEZ / PHOTO EDITOR

NCAA Wrestling Championships Page 2

March 21, 2016

HISTORIC KNIGHTS Senior ends monumental career as 2-time All-American ERIC MULLIN ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

It was a change in footwear that coincided with Anthony Perrotti’s monumental run to an All-American finish in 2014.

Sporting Nike sneakers, Perrotti lost his debut match at the NCAA Championships in Oklahoma City two years ago. The then-sophomore won his next match in the subsequent session, but he would need to record three straight wins in wrestle backs the following day to become an All-American.

When Perrotti stepped on the mat for the first time at the Chesapeake Energy Center on day two of the Championships, he was wearing different shoes — a pair of Asics Aggressors — and looked like a completely different wrestler as he went on an absolute tear through the 157-pound consolation bracket.

In the third session of the tournament, the unseeded Perrotti pinned the No. 9 seed in 10 seconds — the second fastest time in NCAA Championships history — and recorded a second-period pin over the No. 14 seed. In the round of 12 in the fourth session, Perrotti cruised to a major decision over the No. 8 seed to become Rutgers’ first All-American since 2002.

After not advancing past the first day of last year’s national tournament, the now senior 165-pounder had his sights set on ending his career at Rutgers with a national title at this year’s NCAA Championships in New York City.

Entering the tournament as a No. 7 seed, and with Nike sneakers on his feet, Perrotti secured a first-period pin over Forrest

Przybysz of Appalachian State in the first round. On Thursday night in the second session, the 165-pounder met No. 10 seed Austin Wilson of Nebraska, who Perrotti defeated 9-4 when the two squared off in a December dual between their respective programs.

But Wilson shut down the aggressive attack of Perrotti while not surrendering a takedown in a 4-1 decision win.

At the conclusion of the first day of his final national tournament, Perrotti was already bounced from the championship bracket. He said he was frustrated following his loss that night, and when he woke up on Friday he didn’t even want to wrestle.

But even though the dream of becoming a national champion had vanished, Perrotti knew there was still work to be done.

With a desire to help advance the Rutgers wrestling program, Perrotti showed up to Madison Square Garden on Friday with the goal of giving the Scarlet Knights an All-American finisher.

When he stepped on the mat for the first time on day two, he had once again swapped out his Nike sneakers for Asics Aggressors.

And just like he did in 2014, Perrotti ripped off three straight wins to secure the second All-American finish in his career, eventually finishing eighth among 165 pounders.

“It’s pretty cool to finish your career on the podium,” he said.

“After such a bad taste in my mouth last year, it’s good to get back on it. I didn’t come here to take eighth or third, but life will throw a curveball at you all the time, and you just gotta get back up and keep it moving.”

Perrotti began his run through the consolation bracket with a 15-6 major decision over Seth Thomas of Oregon State.

In the same session, he was pitted against No. 15 Clark Glass of Oklahoma, who handed Perrotti 1 of his 2 dual losses this season with a 6-4 decision at the Northeast Duals in November.

The Roseland, New Jersey, native used a takedown in each of the first two periods to build a commanding 4-0 lead and held on for a 5-1 win over Glass, setting him up for a matchup with fellow New Jersey native Conor Brennan of Rider in the “Blood Round.”

The winner would clinch an All-American honor while the loser would be ousted from the tournament.

No. 12 Brennan led 4-2 at the end of the first two periods, but after starting on bottom to begin the third, Perrotti cut the deficit to one with an escape. Then, with 33 seconds remaining in the match, Perrotti scored a takedown right on the edge of the mat as the two wrestlers went out of bounds.

Rider challenged the takedown, but upon review, Perrotti was able to keep his foot in bounds as he scored.

With 33 seconds on the clock and a 1-point lead, all Perrotti had to do was ride out Brennan to win the match.

When the ref blew the final whistle, Brennan was still in Perrotti’s grasp on the far end of the mat. He then got up with a smile, raised his hands to the skies as he walked towards the front of the mat in the direction of where Rutgers fans were seated and yelled out his emotions of excitement in celebration.

Anthony Perrotti celebrates with head coach Scott Goodale after securing an All-American finish with a 5-4 win over Connor Brennan at the NCAA Championships. DIMITRI RODRIGUEZ / PHOTO EDITOR

Anthony Perrotti was the second two-time All-American in program history.

“Wrestling hard until the end” was the key to victory, he explained moments after the match.

“We train so hard for seconds like that. Last-second takedown and the rideout. Like I don’t even know how many times we went over that. It just feels good that my training paid off. Tough match, tough injury I had to deal with. Came back. It feels great.”

The injury Perrotti mentioned?

Cartilage was torn off his ribs at the Big Ten Championships two weeks prior. He was still feeling the effects of the injury at the NCAA Championships, but it wasn’t until the match following his win over Brennan that it would appear to noticeably affect him.

Still in contention for third place, Perrotti wrestled again just over an hour after clinching All-American status, facing another New Jersey native in No. 14 David McFadden of Virginia Tech.

In the second period, McFadden was on top of Perrotti when he pointed towards the Rutgers bench, signaling he needed an injury timeout.

After about a minute of break, Perrotti decided to stay in the match. Already facing a 6-2 deficit, he wouldn’t score for the remainder of the match as he fell in a major decision, 10-2, dropping him into the seventh-place match.

“It’s a tough injury anytime you’re dealing with ribs. You’re breathing, you’re laughing, you’re coughing — it hurts. It really hurt to move a lot,” Perrotti said. “The coaches, they give me their life, their body, their family time every day. It’s not fair for me to bail out almost. So I’m just gonna fight through for them. They give up their life and I would give up mine for all of them. I’m not a quitter.”

The Knights’ two-time All-American came back on Saturday afternoon for a rematch with Austin Wilson in seventh place. The Cornhuskers’ grappler was able to limit Perrotti yet again in a 4-2 victory.

Locked in at an eighth place finish, Perrotti’s career on the Banks had come to a close.

He compiled a total of 85 wins, was a three-time NCAA qualifier and is the first wrestler in Rutgers program history to finish an All-American at two different weight classes.

Although he didn’t finish his career on top at the national tournament, he was at the forefront of a turnaround season for Rutgers, who took down seven ranked opponents, finished the season No. 10 in the nation and qualified its whole lineup for the NCAA Championships for the first time in program history.

As someone who wants to stick around the program in some capacity to help it continue to build towards becoming a national championship contender, that meant the most to Perrotti.

“I’ve waited five years to have a really good team. This was really special,” he said. “My individual accomplishments are awesome, I like them. But I’m a big team guy, like I said. I always say it, I care about everything the team does.

We finished so awesome and to be considered the leader of it, it’s crazy, it’s awesome. I’m honored.”

Perrotti was the first All-American in head coach Scott Goodale’s tenure at the helm of Rutgers.

After Anthony Ashnault had already secured All-American honors this year, Perrotti’s finish in the top-eight gave the program multiple All-Americans for just the second time.

Less than 20 minutes after Perrotti’s final match, Goodale talked to the media in the back tunnels of MSG as he watched his senior fight back emotions while finishing an interview 5 feet away from him.

Goodale called Perrotti, along with senior heavyweight Billy Smith, a cornerstone of the Rutgers wrestling program’s turnaround, as they had been through the lows with Goodale.

When asked about Perrotti fighting through an injury on his way to giving Rutgers a second All-American for the first time since 1952, Goodale became choked-up after talking about Perrotti’s passion for the sport that connects them.

“Well, that’s what’s great about this sport,” he said of Perrotti. “You find a kid, those are all raw emotions and he’s super tough. That’s what you get out of it, is what you put into it. We’ve recruited guys with all these credentials, threetime state champs and four-time state champs. But if you don’t have those raw emotions and excitement about what you’re doing and passion, you’re never successful.

The reason why he’s so successful is his passion for what he’s doing and this university and this team.

Those are real emotions right there. We’re gonna miss him.”

While Perrotti plans to remain a part of the program, his competitive wrestling days have come to a conclusion.

After walking off the mat for the final time in his career, Perrotti thanked the sport that allowed him to become a two-time All-American and his coaches and parents for shaping him into the person that he leaves the sport as — a pair of Nike shoes transformed into Asic Aggressors.

“I walk away from the sport with a lot more than being a two-time All-American and state champ. I’ve learned life-long lessons and certain things you don’t learn just from being a normal person,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’ve been through a lot of hard times with this sport. It’s kicked me when I’m down. It’s brought me to the highest point in my life.

The only thing I have to say to it is ‘thank you’. This is a special chapter in my life. Sixteen years and it was really special coming to Rutgers, representing New Jersey most importantly. The coaches helped me grow a lot over the years. I came into college (as a) know-it-all, little punk kinda and they turned me into the man I am today, along with my parents. I can’t thank them enough for that.”

For updates on the Rutgers wrestling team follow @EricMullin_ and @TargumSports on Twitter.

March 21, 2016

NCAA Wrestling Championships Page 3

ARE NOT SATISFIED All-American status not enough for National Title hopeful

Sophomore 141-pounder Anthony Ashnault reacts following his 7-6 loss to Stanford’s No. 2 seed Joey McKenna in the third-place bout at the NCAA Championships.

Ashnault tied the second-highest finish in program history at the tournament, earning a fourth-place finish and All-American honors. DIMITRI RODRIGUEZ / PHOTO EDITOR

ERIC MULLIN ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

There wasn’t much celebration from Anthony Ashnault after he took down Jimmy Gulibon of Penn State to become the first Big Ten Champion in Rutgers wrestling history.

While the sophomore 141-pounder was proud of the achievement, there was a bigger goal out there for Ashnault — one that had been his main focus for over a year.

Not satisfied with his eighthplace, All-American finish in his first NCCA Championships last year as a redshirt freshman, Ashnault set out on a mission to capture a national title at the 2016 tournament in New York City.

On the heels of an 18-1 dual season, becoming the program’s first Big Ten Champion and landing a No. 4 seed entering the tournament, the South Plainfield, New Jersey, native seemed to be well on his way to making a serious run at the national title.

Following the championship round at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, Ashnault was standing on the podium yet again with his fellow 141-pound All-Americans.

But although he was positioned higher than he was on last year’s podium in St. Louis, Ashnault was still three spots lower than he had originally envisioned.

He put together an impressive run to the semifinal round, but Ashnault was knocked off by eventual national champion No. 1 seed Dean Heil en route to a fourth-place finish.

The sophomore becomes the first wrestler in program history to start their career with two All-American finishes and ties the second-highest

finish for a Scarlet Knight at the NCAA Championships.

But even after his second consecutive All-American finish and making the jump from eighth to fourth place, there was no celebration from Ashnault, who hadn’t thought about anything other than leaving MSG with a national title.

“Not satisfied,” Ashnault said of his performance at the national tournament. “I came here to win a national title. I didn’t really think about taking anything else than first. But two-time All-American as a sophomore, it’s pretty cool. I guess I’ll be looking at it later on as a great accomplishment, but right now, it’s a little disappointment.”

Ashnault was locked in from the first opening whistle of his tournament.

In his first match Thursday morning, he made easy work of Hofstra’s Jamel Hudson in a 16-0 technical fall. In the second session that night, he continued his dominance with a 15-2 major decision over Seth Gross of South Dakota State to move onto to the quarterfinals in session three.

The quarterfinal round on Saturday morning would give Ashnault his toughest test of the tournament yet in the form of Old Dominion’s No. 12 Chris Mecate.

Ashnault edged out Mecate at the Midland Championships in December, but this time it was a closer bout that ended 4-3 in Ashnault’s favor.

With the clock ticking under 30 seconds in the third period, Ashnault held a 3-2 lead, but Mecate’s riding time of over a minute was the unofficial equalizer.

With both grapplers scrambling in neutral position, it appeared the match was heading into overtime

until Ashnault scored a takedown on Mecate with 20 seconds left.

Mecate was able to escape, but couldn’t score again as Ashnault clinched All-American status with a 5-4 win on his way to the quarterfinal round Friday night.

The 2016 Big Ten Champion was one win away from punching his ticket to fight for the national title, but standing in his way was No. 1 seed Dean Heil of Oklahoma State.

Heil and Ashnault were no strangers to each other, as Heil knocked Ashnault — who suffered a leg injury in the match — out of contention for third place at the 2015 NCAA Championships with a 9-4 decision.

Just as in that match, Heil proved to be too big a force for Ashnault.

The South Plainfield, New Jersey, native was aggressive in taking shots at Heil, but the No. 1 seed had an answer for nearly all of them by either stymying or reversing them into takedowns of his own.

Heil led for the entire match, opening up a lead of 5-1 entering the third period and wound up being a thorn in Ashnault’s side for the second consecutive year by outing him from the championship bracket with an 8-3 win.

With his dream of becoming a national champion put on hold, Ashnault was forced to refocus on finishing third.

The sophomore returned to MSG Saturday morning with an All-American placement match against Virginia Tech’s No. 7 Solomon Chishko. Ashnault didn’t show any signs of a disappointment hangover as he cruised to an 11-3 major decision over Chisko.

“It sucks, but losses happen.

Like, yeah, I wanted to win (the) national title, but you like, you

never know. Wrestling’s so close, so many weight classes. It stings a lot, but I knew this morning I was gonna come ready to wrestle no matter what the deal was,” Ashnault said. “I was gonna wrestle hard … But yeah, I felt real focused, you gotta be able to reset your mind in these kind of tournaments, cause I could have came today and went 0-2 and put my head in the mat and that wouldn’t have looked too good and took sixth place.”

With the opportunity to capture third and end his sophomore season with a win, Ashnault was pitted against a fellow New Jersey native in No. 2 Joey McKenna of Stanford.

Ashnault faced one-point deficits at the end of each of the first two periods.

By escaping McKenna’s grasp, Ashnault was able to lock the score at 5 early in the third, but a takedown by the Stanford freshman with 1:19 remaining would be the match-deciding points.

Ashnault later escaped to make it 7-6, but that score would hold true until the end of the match, locking him into a finish identical to his seeding at fourth place.

“For him to win a national title, he’s gonna have to beat (the other top guys in his weight class) and he knows that,” said head coach Scott Goodale. “On any give day he could beat anybody in the country he’s that good. It’s a fine line here, it’s a fine line between winning and losing. It’s the highest level of our sport and he’s right in the thick of it, which is great. He’s in the thick of it and he deserves that.”

Not capturing a national title doesn’t take away from what Ashnault has been able to achieve in his first two years in the lineup, as he builds a resume that could

wind up being the greatest in program history by the end of his career.

Through two seasons, he’s put together a combined 37-3 dual record, captured a Big Ten Championship and finished eighth and fourth at the national tournament.

But offering up the fact that he still has two more years to capture a national title wouldn’t necessarily be music to a disappointed Ashnault’s ears.

With only a maximum of four runs at it, each missed opportunity lessens the opportunities of capturing one. Also adding in the fact that Heil, McKenna and Mecate, among other top 141-pounders, will be vying for the same title Ashnault strives for the next two years makes the road to a national title even tougher.

Anthony Ashnault can still be Rutgers’ first national champion.

With his talent and drive, he can even still be a two-time national champion.

But just as it did this year, tossup bouts against top grapplers in the next two NCAA Championships are going to decide whether Ashnault goes down in history as a great wrestler, or a great national champion.

“The one thing about Anthony is you know he’s always gonna be in the thick of it, and he’s just gotta punch through one time,” Goodale said. “But there’s been some great ones that have come through this tournament and not won a national title, and we’re not settling for that. We’re gonna try to do everything in our power to make sure he’s in the best possible situation to win one, win two. So that’ll be his approach all summer long.”

For updates on the Rutgers wrestling team, follow @EricMullin_ and @TargumSports on Twitter.

UNFITTING END TO BREAKTHROUGH SEASON

ERIC MULLIN ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

In the days leading up to the start of the Rutgers wrestling team’s season, head coach Scott Goodale laid out the ultimate goal for the 2015-16 campaign at its media day.

“You gotta put more than one guy on that podium,” Goodale said. “So that’s kind of our mindset, and we truly believe we have guys in this program that are in this lineup that can do it … But for us to be successful, it can’t just be one guy anymore. This program is too good and we need to put two and three on that podium, and then our breakout year will be four or five.”

When the Scarlet Knights bussed back from the NCAA Tournament held in New York City over the weekend, they returned with multiple All-Americans in sophomore 141-pounder Anthony Ashnault, who finished fourth, and senior 165-pounder Anthony Perrotti, who finished eighth.

But although the Knights had achieved their initial goal of putting multiple wrestlers on the podium — something that hadn’t been done as a program since 1952 — the mood around the team wasn’t one of satisfaction.

After the season that Rutgers had put together — taking down three top-10 opponents and seven ranked foes overall, jumping to a fifth place finish at the Big Ten Championships, landing at No. 10 in the national rankings at the end of the season and being 1 of 3 teams to qualify its entire lineup for the national tournament — expectations had been raised and finishing with two All-Americans and 15th overall as a team with 30 points didn’t seem to meet them.

So rather than leaving Madison Square Garden with excitement and satisfaction, the Knights exit the season simply wanting more.

“We felt like we left a lot on the table and we feel we’re a top-10 team, we didn’t wrestle like that,” Goodale said. “But at the end of the day, we leave here with two All-Americans. We would’ve died for that a couple years ago. But that’s where we’re at and that’s good. I’m glad (our staff) here are hungry and they want more. I’m glad (Perrotti) wants more cause he’ll be a part of us. And I know Ashnault wants more.”

Rutgers didn’t get off to an ideal start to the tournament on Thursday morning.

Only Ashnault, Perrotti and junior 157-pounder Richie Lewis collected wins and remained in the championship bracket after the first session.

The second session wasn’t much better either as 5 of 7 Knights making their debuts at the NCAA Championships — junior 125-pounder Sean McCabe, redshirt freshman 133-pounder Anthony Giraldo, sophomore 149-pounder Tyson Dippery, junior 174-pounder Phil Bakuckas and senior 197-pounder Hayden Hrymack — were bounced from the tournament after dropping both of their first two bouts.

“Honestly, it was a tough day for us. It was a really, really tough day. It was a humbling experience,” Goodale said after the first day. “We got probably pinned more times than we were pinned all year long … Overall we didn’t wrestle well. Those guys that went zero and two, they didn’t wrestle, they didn’t show up to wrestle.”

Rutgers came back to Madison Square Garden on Friday morning with only half of its roster and with Ashnault as the only remaining grappler in a championship bracket.

No. 4-seeded Ashnault used a takedown with 20 seconds left to defeat No. 12 Chris Mecate, 5-4, and advance to the semifinals.

Perrotti, Lewis, senior heavyweight Billy Smith and sophomore 184-pounder Nicholas Gravina would each need two wins in the third session to advance to Friday night’s round of 12, where they would wrestle for All-American honors.

SEE BREAKTHROUGH ON PAGE 10

DIMITRI RODRIGUEZ / PHOTO EDITOR