7 - Breakthrough

I had learned the benefit of offseason work even before high school. During spring, following my sophomore season, I competed in a series of open tournaments. For the first time in my career, I won a competition without being the top seed. It was an essential step for my confidence.

Sometime in the summer before my junior year, Coach Jones asked me to cut down a weight class, significantly increasing my probability of getting to nationals the following year. I gave his recommendation serious consideration. I reassessed myself and decided I had two main problems: I could not finish my takedowns on high-caliber opponents and was too weak to be in the 141-pound weight class. In the end, I decided not to run from anyone and added ten pounds of muscle by putting in lots of time at the gym. On top of that, every time I drilled, I finished the takedowns to the mat.

“Never run, never scared.” Living that motto is much more difficult than saying it. I found that by forcing myself never to run from anyone, never being scared happened on its own.

Getting out of New England and making it to nationals was a monumental task my junior year. In the preseason National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) poll, the three guys ranked ahead of me in New England were ranked one, three, and seven in the country. Only the first-place finisher in the conference was guaranteed a trip to the national tournament. [Footnote 2: As of 2013, the top three finishers in six regional tournaments qualify for the NCAA Division III tournament.]

In addition to my nationally-ranked opponents, John Marsh transferred to Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts from Slippery Rock. J-Wu had Steve Eberle, who would be a noteworthy opponent for me. The 141-pound weight class in 2006-07 was shaping up to be the toughest in New England history. [Footnote 3: There were four future All-Americans and four New England Hall of Fame wrestlers.] Nevertheless, it was there where I made my stand. In my mind, I was going to go undefeated, win a Division III national title and ride off into the sunset. No one thought I could, and that was motivating. I knew the best everyone hoped for me was to take third in the qualifier and just manage to get to nationals on a wild card bid. I held myself to a higher standard.

If I could win nationals in my junior year, I would leave RIC following the spring 2007 semester. I was graduating in May regardless of how wrestling panned out. I also wanted to break my school's single-season win and takedown records. The win record was forty-one, and to better it, I would not be able to sit out of many matches. This proved to be a very significant piece of the puzzle for me.

I was more focused than I had ever been. I knew what I wanted and what it would take to get there. I wanted a national title, although I knew I had to focus on the New England tournament first. If I had a bad tournament in late February, I would not even be making the trip to Iowa, where the NCAA championships were held.

I started the year under the national radar. The New England conference was one of the weakest of the nine regions that made up the Division III tournament. While there were many phenomenal wrestlers, the conference had not had a national champion since 1994, when RIC’s only champ, Billy Cotter, won at 134 pounds, and Norwich’s Frank Field won the crown at 177 pounds. Those were the only two national champions from New England schools through the 2007 season. [Footnote 4: Since the publication of the original text, the number of champions from New England colleges has grown to ten, including 2022 NCAA champion Nathan Lackman from Rhode Island College.]

The season was hands down the most fun I ever had because the guys on the team were friends first and teammates second. No one expected anything from us, and I only had my self-imposed pressure. It was the one time in my career I did not have a countdown until the end of the season.

At the beginning of the year, both of Coach Jones’s assistants (Baum and Smith) had quit for different reasons. RIC wrestling had two new assistant coaches, former teammates of mine, Keith Nelson and Dave Paquette. While they lacked the seasoned experience of weathered coaches, they brought new dynamics to the team. The way it turned out, Keith ran practice. Jones and Paquette jumped in from time to time and dealt with the athletic director, recruiting, and planning trips.

As a student volunteer assistant, Todd Bloom was a part of this team too. All volunteer coaches should be commended. The amount of time invested is tremendous and to receive no monetary payment seems unfair. Todd was one of those guys who, if our paths had not crossed, I would not have had as many successes.

Besides the adjustment of having new assistant coaches, this year of RIC wrestling had a few other problems. They included being captainless for a good part of the season, headgear disputes, and drilling and sprinting issues. The situations were not handled well on the team’s nor the coaches’ sides. Yet a great thing emerged from the chaos; the athletes on our team grew even closer to one another.

During our inter-squad match in the preseason, Team Gold, which happened to be my side, had the mock dual won heading into the final match. Our starting heavyweight, Andrew Algarin, was on my team and almost a sure win for us. Algarin and Sean Miele, the other 141, devised a ploy. During his match, Algarin had built a sizable lead, and then he screamed, fell, and faked an injury. The trainer rushed onto the mat. Algarin made the injury time sign, and Miele threw him a Snickers bar. He took a bite and started running around like the energizer bunny. When the match resumed, he pinned our other heavyweight putting an exclamation point on the fun mock dual meet.

Even after the first month of the season, which began as a hurricane, I knew the waters would calm and expected to get off to a good start. To my chagrin, it did not turn out that way. In my second match at the Roger Williams Invitational, I lost in the quarterfinals to Steve Eberle from J-Wu. I had beaten him twice the year before. I began to seriously doubt myself and sent my younger brother Robbie this text message, “Maybe I’m just not as good as I think.”

I had to wrestle four more matches to take third, beating Eberle in the consolation finals. I was not happy but was somewhat satisfied that I was able to wrestle back. I knew that you could still wrestle back to win if you lose a match in the New England tournament. Wrestling back was something I had not done well in the past. My spirits were also kept up by the knowledge that the very next weekend, I would have another crack at many of the same opponents.

In the semifinals of the tournament hosted by Springfield College, I ended up wrestling Lacroix, the nation’s top-ranked wrestler. The result was the same as our previous two matches, a decision loss. I was livid and foolishly kicked a wall, injuring my foot, which bothered me for around three weeks.

Although I did not know it at the time, this cloud had a silver lining. I saw that I had to take the match out of the official’s hands and widen the gap between myself and my opponents. In particular, I learned how to score from the neutral position with my reverse leg wrapped around my opponent’s near leg. With the lessons learned, I rebounded to take third. This time I was not even slightly content.

Two weeks later, I had another massive tournament in Rochester, New York. I got the number two seed, with Paul LeBlanc, the fourth-place finisher at the 2006 NCAAs, as the number one. In the semifinals, I lost by a point in the closing seconds to a different wrestler from Case Western Reserve. It was a spirit-crushing defeat. Not only did I lose in all three of the first competitions of the season, but the wrestlers who beat me did not even go on to win those tournaments.

At this point, I had not been in a final since the first competition of my freshman year.

I walked off the mat and slumped against the wall with my chin down. Coach Jones found me, put his hand on my head, and urged me to wrestle back and take third because “something like this might happen at New England’s.” It was good to hear those encouraging words. I did wrestle back to take third after getting a few quick stitches to fix a gash over my eye.

Losses can help you realize you need help. This particular loss made me work very hard to correct my weaknesses in the practice room. The setback dropped my record to 14-3 on the year. I then went on a thirty-plus match-winning streak, the longest of my career. I allowed myself to be happy for minutes after each win, and then I focused on the next match. Winning more than thirty consecutive matches was a big step in the right direction, but it was never my goal. The goal was to win a New England title and, hopefully, a national one. I learned never to enjoy a semifinals win too much, as it might take my eyes off the true goal of winning the finals.

During the winning streak, I won my first ever NCAA sanctioned tournament, the Citrus Invitational in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Going away as a team strengthened our friendships, and we grew even closer than we already were.

During one of the matches at the tournament, our 133-pound wrestler, Ray Hanley (@toohot2hanley), saw our 165, Arty Privedenyuk (@artyom65), scanning the crowd before his match. Ray asked Arty what he was looking for. Arty responded, “Motivation. I wrestle better in front of beautiful girls.”

The New England duals hosted by Bridgewater State College was where my next match of note occurred. Our first-round opponents were Norwich University, Mike Conklin’s team. He was ranked fourth in the nation at the time. The morning of the match, Coach Jones asked me if I wanted to wrestle him. I thought about what I had told myself at the beginning of the season: “Never run, never scared.” I also thought about how he ended my season the previous year and wanted to right that wrong.

In the eyes of the New England faithful, I was the underdog. But I was confident I would prevail if I wrestled smartly by keeping the match on our feet, in my best position. Right away, I slipped up when he took me down, and I landed on my back for two seconds. I found myself in a four-point hole. During the back-and-forth bout, my teammates were super supportive, and I never gave up. I escaped and went on to take him down five times to win by a final of 12-10. My teammates were going nuts when the buzzer sounded, and it was one of those moments that made all the hard work worth it.

The bout of the afternoon was not mine and Conklin’s, but that of one of my best friends, Ray. He was pitted against the number two ranked wrestler in the nation, who had beaten him three times already. However, in this match, Ray secured a fall from the top position as he had done to so many other opponents. No matter the odds, anything is possible in a wrestling match.

After the New England duals, I was ranked sixth in the country. A teammate congratulated me by saying, “It means nothing, but it’s still cool.” To me, it did have meaning. It meant that other people now saw something in me, which I knew was there all along. I was no longer just a good wrestler. For the first time, I was a nationally ranked one.

Before the conference championships, I spoke with former teammate Luis Felix about my weight class. “That weight is like four lions (Gaeta, Conklin, Lacroix, and me) going at it,” he said. “I can’t wait to see it.”

I responded with, “yeah,” although in my head, I told myself, “They may be lions, but I’m a shark, and we’re in water.”

Heading into the national qualifier in February, the way the seeds were going to be awarded was up in the air. At the time, Gaeta was ranked fourth in the country, I was fifth, and Conklin dropped to sixth after I beat him. Lacroix was no longer ranked but had beaten me the only time we wrestled in November, and to his credit, he placed third in the country the previous year. I had not lost a match in nearly three months, yet somehow the fourth seed had my name behind it. That meant I had to wrestle three-time defending New England champion Gaeta in the semifinals.

Ray told me, “Those damn coaches disrespected you, and you better take it out on everyone.” The fourth seed, along with Ray’s words, gave me extra motivation. I text messaged Robbie about my seed, and he responded, “It doesn’t matter when you wrestle Gaeta because you’re winning it.”

The seeds also set up a familiar situation. It put me against the fifth seed, Eberle, in the quarterfinals. That was the same scenario as the beginning of the year when I lost at the Roger Williams tournament. Ironically, the New England championships were hosted by Roger Williams that season.

I was confident I could beat Lacroix and Conklin, but Gaeta was a question mark. The last time we were on a mat together was during my freshman year when he pinned me in a match that was not even close. I wanted “it” much more this time around, and that was comforting. All I could do was take it one match at a time.

Some wrestlers do not like to look at the bracket. They say it influences their wrestling. I want to know the path I must travel to win. I wanted to study my opponent to identify their weaknesses and attack them. I equate not knowing who you are wrestling to entering into a war without any knowledge of the country you will be fighting.

When the 2007 New England championships got underway, I did not make the same mistake I made at the Roger Williams tournament. I handled Eberle in the quarterfinals after a first-round bye. Gaeta also did his job to set up our semifinals showdown. On the other hand, the bottom half of the bracket was not going according to plan. Conklin was upset by John Marsh in the quarterfinals. In his semifinals, Marsh’s sensational run continued as he pinned Lacroix. This guaranteed him, at worst, a third-place finish. Meaning that Lacroix, Conklin, or whoever lost in my match against Gaeta would take fifth and not make it to nationals. The New England coaches would never give a fifth-place finisher one of their four wild cards.

I reviewed the previous lessons that I had written down throughout my career. The price of the lessons was high, but now I planned on cashing them in.

The whistle blew, and Gaeta and I were both very active in our attempts to score first. Shots and counters were followed by more shots and counters. Neither of us could gain the upper hand as we flowed from move to move. Gaeta then took a half shot that fooled me. That gave him enough time to hit the move he intended to all along, a duck-under. I turned to face him as fast as I could, and he transitioned to a high single leg. I dropped to one knee and fought him off as his arms reached across to my far ankle in an attempt to get the first two points. I was able to roll both of our bodies out of bounds and get a fresh start. When the match recommenced, I faked a high crotch to one leg and went for a low single on the other. It caught Gaeta entirely off guard. When my shoulder rammed into his shin, his leg buckled, and he fell, earning me the takedown. He quickly escaped making the score 2-1 at the end of the first.

I chose down to start the second period and escaped in less than fifteen seconds to increase my lead to two. On our feet was where this match was going to be won. I went for my most effective shot, a fireman’s carry. I captured Gaeta’s leg and threw him over my head. He was able to get to his hips and stop me from earning the takedown. With a lot more action but no scoring, the second period ended with me up 3-1.

Gaeta chose down in the final period and escaped very quickly, again, cutting my lead to one. In my head, I told myself, “one more takedown, and this match is mine.” I shot in and got trapped in a front headlock. Without thinking, I slipped my arms around Gaeta’s back, dropping him to his stomach and scoring two more points. It was an arm drag finish that Florian had taught me years earlier. I breathed a sigh of relief, but Gaeta did not let me enjoy the moment. He escaped and took me down with a high single to tie the match at five. There were twenty seconds left on the clock. If he held me down for the final seconds, we would move to overtime. I fought to my base, then to my feet, and broke away from his grip earning me the point I needed to win the match. It was the most significant victory of my career, and after I shook hands with Gaeta, I walked off the mat and wrapped Robbie in a big hug.

What You Can Take Away from Chapter 7:

1. Rankings should make you work harder, whether one or one hundred.

2. “Never run, never scared.”

3. Take it one match at a time.

4. Hard work in the offseason is when you make the most gains.

5. To be the best, you have to beat the best.