Pitt Wrestling team takes an early 10-0 lead, but can’t keep up momentum in 21-13 loss to Mountaineers

The Pitt wrestling team returned to action on Saturday at Morgantown, W.Va. and jumped out to… The Pitt wrestling team returned to action on Saturday at Morgantown, W.Va. and jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead after three early victories. However, the Panthers could not sustain their early momentum as they closed the match losing six of the last seven bouts in a 21-13 loss to West Virginia.

“It was a great match,” Pitt wrestling head coach Rande Stottlemyer said. “But unfortunately, we came out on the short end of the stick. We had plenty of opportunities to win it. We had a lot of great performances. It’s one of those [things] where you’d like to swing the bat one more time, but you only get one shot at it. So you got to give West Virginia credit for standing up at the end of the bouts, particularly in the last couple matches.”

Freshman Drew Headlee started the match off for Pitt with a 12-4 major decision at 135 pounds. The win was Headlee’s third consecutive and improved his record to 14-5 for the season. Headlee’s victory was followed by sophomores Mike Ciotti and Ronald Tarquinio’s 6-4 and 8-2 victories for the Panthers at 133 and 141 pounds, respectively. Tarquinio’s win was his fourth in a row and pushed his season record to 20-9.

“[Ronald] Tarquinio seems to be very focused,” Stottlemyer said. “He’s having fun and working really hard and letting it flow. He doesn’t worry about the outcome. He just worries about going out there and doing the best he can do, and he’s pretty tough when he does that.”

Freshman Matt Kocher looked to continue Pitt’s momentum in his match against the Mountaineers’ Mike Torriero at 149 pounds. Unfortunately for Pitt and Kocher, Torriero won the match for the Mountaineers, extending Kocher’s losing streak to two and dropping his record to 25-9 for the season.

“When two Division I teams go at it, there’s going to be an ebb and flow,” Stottlemyer said. “One team is going to get the momentum, [then] the other team is going to get the momentum, and you try and get it back, and that’s how it [the match] was.”

Following Kocher’s loss, the Panthers would lose the next two matches at 157 and 165 pounds. Matt Lebe of West Virginia defeated Pitt sophomore Justin Nestor by the score of 6-1 at 157 pounds while Mountaineer Zac Fryling won a tough 11-9 match against Zachariah Doll. Doll’s loss was his third in a row, which caused his record slip to 16-5.

The Panthers regained the momentum briefly following sophomore Francis Iorfido’s shutout at 174 pounds. The victory was Iorfido’s fourth in a row and improved his record to 21-7 for the season.

“Francis, obviously, did a nice job for us again,” Stottlemyer said. “We were hoping to get some extra points there, but the guy [his opponent] made it real hard to do that.”

Despite Iorfido’s win, Pitt lost momentum once again when West Virginia’s Greg Jones pinned Mike Croyle in 5:32 to give the Mountaineers the lead for good at 15-13. West Virginia’s Matt Daddino defeated Josh Birt by the score of 3-2 at 197 pounds and Lanfer Simpson defeated Panther Travis Shirley 7-5 in overtime at heavyweight to seal the victory for the Mountaineers.

Pitt’s next match will be Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m. against Clarion.

“They [Clarion] have talent,” Stottlemyer said. “Those guys are not slugs. They come hard at you and if you’re not really prepared they can win seven or six of those [matches]. So we just got to go out, make sure we do everything that we’ve been doing in terms of wrestling hard and hopefully we’ll wrestle smarter and just jump all over them right from the beginning.”