EIWA Line-Up Projections

[Oracle]

125: Luke Stanich -- looks like they opted for the every 2 week weigh-in strategy. No question he will be the guy and seeded #1 here unless injured prior to EIWAs -- then Sheldon goes and he will qualify if he does.

133: Ryan Crookham -- should be fully rested and seeded #1. Rumors that Vito is injured worse than being reported keep circulating. How important is NCAAs to Vito if it jeopardizes his Olympic run? Will be interesting but if he can go at all, I believe he will.

141: Malyke Hines -- grown into 141 and will be seeded #3

149: Will it be Drew Munch (8-9), Owen Reinsel (14-11), or Kelvin Griffin (21-8) w/12 falls? IMO, it comes down to the latter two. Each has their pluses, but based on record and pinning ability, Griffin -- probably seeded #6 with a good shot to make the EIWA semis.

157: Max Brignola -- seeded #3 with a shot at taking out his nemesis Revano of Penn in the semis.

165: Jake Logan -- last rodeo seeded #6 -- has a shot to make semis and punch his ticket if he can repeat his close win aginst Mulvaney. Hope he does.

174: Conor Herceg - will be unseeded. His best shot would be to draw F&M's Fox in the 1st round. That path has potential for him.

184: Jack Wilt -- will be unseeded. His development has been steady and he is a battler. Nice win against Negron last week. Hope he draws Key in 1st round.

197: Michael Beard -- seeded #1 and an OW candidate.

285: Nathan Taylor -- seeded #1 and needs to stay active. Greiss will be hunting him. And Fernandes. If he attacks, he wins easily.

Predicting 8 qualifiers: Stanich, Crookham, Hines, Griffin, Brignola, Logan, Beard, Taylor. Team finish: 2nd

[legger]

**** O: Hard to argue with anything you posted. I am looking very forward to the EIWAs this year for a number of reasons: 1) How the Lehigh Team has come together, 2) It being the last one with the Ivys, 3) Looking forward to seeing a lot of the Lehigh faithful between sessions 1 & 2 at the Jack Ass Brewery. I hope it is Griffin at 149 as he has the ability to take out higher ranked wrestlers, with his top game and pinning.

[whiz wit]

I like Griffin at 149 on his pinning ability and history. Will probably get a couple of pinnable opponents along the way and those team pin points are big.

[Oracle]

**** O: Hard to argue with anything you posted.

>>>>>> You can call me Lt. Col. Obvious!!

[mookie]

125: To me, this is the biggest question mark for Lehigh. We've gone from thinking Stanich could win an NCAA title to hoping he wins an Eastern title.

133: No clue

141: Hines needs to reach the finals for Lehigh to have any shot at a team title.

149: Of course it's Griffin.

157: See 141

165 - 184: Hope for the best

197: Cardenas & Deprez semis will be great

285: Lots of good guys but Taylor is the best.

[Oracle]

DePrez juts beat Cardenas 7-3 this past weekend. Surprising.

[The Kid]

DePrez may have gotten the rust out. He will likely put up a tougher fight against Beard this time, but I still do not see it being close.

[martinsilvestri]

125: To me, this is the biggest question mark for Lehigh. We've gone from thinking Stanich could win an NCAA title to hoping he wins an Eastern title.

Man, that's a heavy take. 125 is a madhouse and there are no guarantees - Sotelo could take the EIWAs for all we know. But does the loss to Figueroa really devalue Stanich much? More likely Figueroa is having a resurgence (as is much of the ASU squad) from a lackluster early season and took out #5 in the same weekend. He's looking like a finalist if he keeps in this form.

Stanich has shown he's capable of elite wins but the 1-2 ranking was a little bit aggressive in the first place. Some of these rankings (like putting the team in top 5 - really?) are setting people up for disappointment.

[Spladle1989]

1-2 ranking was justified at the time, top 4 still is......there is a reason Lehigh wanted to win that coin flip at ASU, you could see in first period did not have his usual energy/jump.......

His first matches of the day at tournaments will be tough, should get stronger as days go on....if he can make it to final with all day to hydrate and fortify his body, shouldn't be a problem......I would think semi-final match on saturday will be his toughest test at EIWA's shortly after second day weigh in......

[jdalu75]

Stanich didn't take much of a hit in the rankings; more likely Figueroa has returned to form (and had the benefit of the home mat and a friendly ref this past weekend).

3rd CP, 2nd RPI, and the pre-allocated spots per conference are due on Thursday. One word of warning with the RPI, especially -- thanks to the coaches understanding how the system works and the last-chance opens all over the place, lots of wrestlers become eligible in the final two weeks, pushing guys who had RPIs in the 20s out of the Top 33. A couple of years ago Drexel had a wrestler who was something like 22nd in the 1st RPI, not in the top 33 in the 2nd.

I haven't taken the time to figure out which EIWA wrestlers have winning percentages over .700, so what follows is partly conjecture. WrestleStat includes results that the NCAA won't be counting, so we can't use their numbers without checking. I think the EIWA will do fine with AQs. Here's my list, based on the rankings from a couple of weeks ago and the few recent results that I checked.

125: 3 to 6 (Stanich, Ungar, Sotelo likely; Gallagher, Berginc, Maida possible)
133: 4 to 5 (Crookham, Arujau, Colaiocco, Phipps likely; Leiphart possible)
141: 4 to 5 (Cornella, Koderhandt, Hines, Composto likely; Owen possible)
149: 3 to 5 (Fernandez, Swisher, Williams likely; Griffin, Rivera possible)
157: 3 to 4 (Shapiro, Brignola, Revano likely; Lukez possible)
165: 5 (Ramirez, Cassella, Cerniglia, Mulvaney, Filipowicz likely)
174: 3 to 6 (Conigliaro, Incontrera, Wolak likely; Pasiuk, Fox, Wask possible)
184: 6 (Foca, Ayzerov, Nolan, Hale, Dugan, Conway likely)
197: 4 to 6 (Beard, DePrez, Cardenas, Stout likely; Urbas, Wehmeyer possible)
285: 7 (Taylor, Day, Griess, Fernandes, Stoddard, Crosby likely)

Remember that the levels of .700, 30, 30 are the minimums. Last year, for the first time I've seen, one weight class required .740, 26, 26 in order to earn a spot. Griffin (using him as an example, there are others like him) will surely have a Top 26 RPI, but with a .724 winning percentage his chance of earning a spot is probably only 60-70%.

I'm showing somewhere between 44 and 55 pre-allocated spots. Last year the EIWA had 45, with 10 at-larges. This is a good year.


I pretty much agree with what Oracle posted re our lineup and potential NCAA qualifiers. I think Griffin's going; I'd love to know when the decision was (or will be) made. Pretty sure that he'll get an at-large if he doesn't finish high enough. It'll be fun to see if anyone chooses bottom against him during the tournament -- in one bout this season he took injury time, and his opponent chose to stay neutral.

Logan has met or exceeded his seed in his previous three EIWAs. That gives him a shot at stealing a spot. Wilt is probably just one upset away from stealing a spot, and I see him being in a rare position -- he's big for the weight, he appears to be healthy (how many guys can say that at this point in the season?), and he's been improving. We're not going to get everything we'd like, but we could easily wind up with six or seven AQs and one or two at-larges.