Our opening 1-2 punch!

[Mountain Hawk]

Wouldnt be shocked to see:

1) Fix
2) Crookham
3) Orine
4) Vito

Or

1) Crookham
2) Fix
3) Orine
4) Vito

Am I saying either is right? No…… but wouldn’t shock me (that is if Orine wins ACC title at 7 pm)….. and being clear for those who are brown and white happiness blinded( i.e. flaguy) I do believe Crookham should be 1 seed…..

ReADInG ComPReheNsiOn

Sorry to hearing about your reading difficulties. I'd say your bigger problem might be wrestling comprehension based on your placing Orine anywhere ahead of the other three. Read more 'Mountain Hawk' commentary to improve the latter. As for the former - go read the classics. It's good to read on a kindle so you can look up the longer words with ease. You'll find your comprehension improves greatly (along with rules for capitalization). Good luck!

[HFO]

Although due to his injury/transfer situations where I haven't actually seen him a lot yet, Crookham may be the best Lehigh kid I've seen since Burley. He does a number of things well but he may be the best at turning the corner I've ever seen. And he makes it seem easy. Very subtle motion- just twists his shoulders and hips slightly and the other guys fall down.

Stanich is a gamer. But a non-wrestling and weird thing a few of us noticed about him was just his getting on the top rung of the podium. He walked over and faced it and stepped up with one leg (right, I think) and then stepped up. If he used his hands we didn't see it. Not a single champ after him came close to being able to doing that.

Mountain climber strength. Lean and slim, but capable of carrying their weight and recovery of another human being. Seen guys like this easily do 200 pullups and even pullups just from finger tips or even one arm pullups. A development of freakish strength through bodyweight manipulation and lots of repetition. The TV show American Ninja captures people like this.

Indeed spot on about Crookham. 1) He is thick in the legs and strong. Maintain a strong base and hard to score on. 2) In his interview after finals, he talks about seldom hand fighting. He mentions he attempts to not expend energy unnecessarily. He moves. Creates angle. Either attacks or responds with his own counter if someone gets into on him. 3) Like Burley and the greats. He transitions and reacts as fast as anyone. Like you said, he turns the corner so fast that he makes it look easy.

While Vito was not 100%, he came out quick and hard and Ryan got hit with arm drag twice. Vito not really going with leg shots I guess due to some type of injury. I suspect a knee or a stomach muscle or something. Just couldn't tell from watching video. Seem pretty stable on his joints wrestling until the tweak when Ryan defended a shot and they were rolling around.

So at NCAA, I suspect strategy will be to arm drag. Tie up with Ryan and frustrate him with hand fighting. Attempt to ride him out. Wrestle the edges and try to get easy points or defend against points. I doubt too many NCAA guys are going to stay in the middle and given Ryan the entire mat to try to score from. It will be Big 10 style head grab and pushout as much as possible on him and try to keep it a 1 or 2 point match going late into 3rd.

I have seen Ryan wrestle since Junior High Championships and Freestyle at that age when I was out and about in the Springs more. He was PIAA ready as a true freshman. Reminds me a lot of Kolat. I thought he might be set back because of the year out in high school, but he made that up well in his redshirt. The essentially 3 seasons of not beating his body has helped him, but still not even 100% physically. I guess none are at NCAA level by March.

He should be the #1 seed and should have a good path to an NCAA Title. Hope Darian and Henderson are giving him all the speed he can handle. This is about a good of an NCAA team I have seen Lehigh field since 2018 or so. There are 4 legitimate wrestlers with a shot at an NCAA Title. Haven't seen that since 1979.

[HFO]

>>>>>>>>Vito’s ranking and seed should not be negatively impacted because he lost to the top ranked wrestler——— he should be seeded 2nd or 3rd along with Fix ( if Fix wins the Big XII)

Lehigh’s top four should go into the NCAAs with stratospheric seeds———- potentially #1, #1, #3 and #6/7. Might be time to tamp down expectations in a tourney where every match is a proverbial minefield.

As long as he is not the #4 seed! Hope Fix is on Vito's side of the bracket also.

[HFO]

The five minute post match interview with Crookham on Flo is a walking talking billboard for come wrestle at Lehigh……quite impressive

I agree. This young man is well grounded and true ambassador of the sport. Could be the Dave Shultz of his era. He is humble. Thankful. Gives full compliment to family, coaches, overall community in his development. He espoused the history of the sport. Going to 8 previous NCAA as a fan with his father. Plus he gave alms to God for the opportunity to have the abilities to compete at this level. He is quite the ambassador of the sport. Throw in he is a BS Finance/MS Financial Engineering major with highest GPA on team, he will go far in life.

I'll be long gone, but it is refreshing to see a throwback young man like this on the team. Any 125 to 141 coming out of high school for next 3 years should be running to Pat Santoro's office to sign up to come to LEHIGH. 125 to 149 going forward can be a powerhouse in NCAA. We have the guys and the new guys in the pipeline.

This has become a special inflection point in the history of LEHIGH WRESTLING!

[HFO]

Ragusin is TECH'd 23-8 by Rutgers' Shawver in Big Ten final

While the elites are coming out of St. Edward's, Elyria has produced some amazing wrestlers over the past 8 years. Shawver came out of nowhere this year. Absolutely destroyed Ragusin. Prior to this year, essentially his 4th at Rutgers, but only a sophomore eligibility, he was about a 0.500 wrestler. He obviously found his talent level or he had some nagging injuries over the previous years because he is on a whole new level.

[Spladle1989]

Wouldnt be shocked to see:

1) Fix
2) Crookham
3) Orine
4) Vito

Or

1) Crookham
2) Fix
3) Orine
4) Vito

Am I saying either is right? No…… but wouldn’t shock me (that is if Orine wins ACC title at 7 pm)….. and being clear for those who are brown and white happiness blinded( i.e. flaguy) I do believe Crookham should be 1 seed…..

Mountain Hawk reread that last sentence again and let me know where you are confused

[whiz wit]

Wrestlestat is unimpressed by Crookham going 2 for 2 against Arujau:

#1 - Arujau
#2 - Fix
#3 - Crookham

Arujau beats Crookham 8-5
Fix beats Crookham 7-3

[FloridaGuy]

>>>>>> WrestleStat, imo, gives too much weight to prior years performance. The coaches rankings had Crookham #1 and I think that will be his NCAA seed, with Fix #2 and Vito #3.

The coaches rankings also had Stanich #2, Beard #3 and Nate #6. I think Lehigh’s NCAA seeds will be very close to those rankings.

[Spladle1989]

Seems like it comes down to two true freshman for 1 seed at 125.......will be interesting to see which way they go.......good argument to be made for both......Spratley losing Big 12 final to Volk doesn't help Stanich argument......

Guessing Davis is 1 seed and Stanich 2 seed.......not a big difference though it's a wide open weight class......

[mookie]

Daton Fix is older than the combined age of Davis and Stanich.