Forfeit helps Pitt edge UNC

Although the Pitt wrestling team scored a win in its match against North Carolina Saturday,… Although the Pitt wrestling team scored a win in its match against North Carolina Saturday, credit the Tar Heels with an assist.

North Carolina had to forfeit the 125-pound bout, awarding the No. 22 Panthers (12-3, 4-0 EWL) with six points to start the day.

After the first match, North Carolina won five of the last nine matches, outscoring Pitt, 19-14. Thanks to the forfeit, the Panthers escaped with the 20-19 win. It was the Panthers’ second consecutive one-point win.

All of North Carolina’s wrestlers at the 125-pound weight class were too hurt to wrestle. The Tar Heels also had to forfeit that match when facing Ohio the day before coming to the Fitzgerald Field House.

Unlike the help from the Tar Heels in the first match, the Panthers had to overcome a couple of disputable calls from the referee, most notably in the 165-pound bout.

Even before the match started, freshman Ethan Headlee had the tough task of wrestling No. 13 Keegan Mueller of North Carolina. During the match, or the short amount of time in which it was fought, Headlee wasn’t helped by the referee.

With Headlee standing to his side, Mueller flipped him over his shoulder onto the mat and immediately covered him. The referee slid onto the mat in front of the two wrestlers, and within seconds of getting into position, he ruled that Mueller had won the match with an unusually quick call of a pin fall.

“I thought that wasn’t a very good call,” Pitt coach Rande Stottlemyer said. “Ethan deserved better than that. He would’ve made it a match.”

In the final bout of the day, featuring both teams’ heavyweights, Stottlemyer had a few more disagreements with calls from the referee.

With the score tied at one in the third period, it appeared No. 13 Zach Sheaffer was about to score two points on a late takedown. As Sheaffer was trying to gain control of North Carolina’s Justin Dobies to secure his two points, Dobies was able to slide out of the ring to stop play. It was a close-enough play that Stottlemyer felt Sheaffer should’ve been awarded his points for the takedown.

Later in the same match, the situation was reversed. Sheaffer was brought down to the mat, with Dobies trying to finish the takedown before Sheaffer could angle his way out of the ring. With 15 seconds to go in the bout, Dobies scored the takedown to earn him the win, 3-1.

This time Stottlemyer felt his wrestler, like Dobies earlier, was able to avoid being taken down.

“You can’t control [the referees],” he said.

The Panthers finish up the dual-meet season with home matches against EWL foes Clarion on Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Edinboro on Saturday, also at 7 p.m.

“It’s a long season, and we’re just now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” Stottlemyer said. “If we wrestle like this, we won’t win [against Clarion or Edinboro].”

Against North Carolina, the trio of seniors all won their respective matches once again.

In the 141-pound bout, No. 17 Drew Headlee defeated Nick Stabile, 5-3. No. 5 Matt Kocher won the 157-pound match, 6-1, only giving up an escape point late in the third period. In the 174-pound match, No. 1 Keith Gavin remained undefeated on the season with an 18-3 technical fall.

Also winning for the Panthers was David Sullivan at 184 pounds. The sophomore won, 9-3, for his 22nd win of the season.

Pitt’s usual wrestler at 133 pounds, Jimmy Conroy, didn’t wrestle against North Carolina. The sophomore had to sit out because he was at his maximum of 16 dates on the season.

“It’s my mistake,” Stottlemyer said. “We could’ve done it other times, but we just caught it here recently.”

His replacement, freshman Eric Rosencranz, lost 7-3.