With rumors running rampant after this last weekend of action, Cornell head coach Mike Grey shot down speculation of a possible weight class change for Cornell’s returning national champion Vito Arujau.

“Vito will and is wrestling at 133 pounds, he is not going to 125,” Grey said. “He is still week-to-week, but he is not (going to be) wrestling at 125 pounds.”

Coming off a Senior World Championship this summer, Arujau has been limited to just five matches this collegiate season. He saw action on Nov. 12 in three bouts to start the year at the Journeymen Collegiate Classic, then wrestled a pair of duals on Dec. 18 at the National Collegiate Wrestling Duals.

“He is sitting at five matches right now,” Grey said. “Hopefully we get him back at full strength in a couple of weeks and he gets enough bouts to be ranked, to go along with his winning percentage, to qualify a spot for the conference.”

Recapping Last Weekend

After a one-point loss at #8 Ohio State last Friday night, Cornell made the bus trip back to Ithaca and took out #11 Virginia Tech Sunday afternoon.

“Going into last weekend, we had set some goals,” Grey said. “We wanted to eliminate distractions, we wanted to win the moment. We wanted to continue to stay in the fight. And we wanted to wrestle for something bigger than yourself.

“If you look at our team since Nashville (Collegiate Wrestling Duals), I think we have done a really good job in winning the small battles. We are definitely coming into shape, and it is happening at the right time.”

Neither of Virginia Tech’s top two wrestlers came away with bonus points against unranked Cornell wrestlers, something that Grey was quick to point out as one of the stories of the dual win. 

Ethan Fernandez wrestled #2 Caleb Henson to a 9-2 decision at 149 pounds. Then a few bouts later, Benny Baker, at 174 pounds, also limited the scoring in his loss to 9-3 #2 Mekhi Lewis.

“Fernandez wrestled a very tough match and did not give up any bonus points,” Grey said. “Same thing with Benny, he faced a returning national champion. Coming off that Ohio State dual, I think we did a wonderful job eliminating bonus points.

“Our squad fought really hard and stayed in the fight. We did a lot of little things right, and that was important to us. We wanted to do everything we can to focus on those minute details.”

Onto Lehigh

Cornell will be in road action this weekend, making the trip down to Bethlehem, Pa., for a dual against EIWA rival Lehigh. Last season, Cornell came away with an 18-15 win in the dual, snapping a three-match losing streak to the Mountain Hawks.

“We expect their best, and we always get their best,” Grey said. “Our guys are excited for the opportunity. We know there is a lot of history in this matchup. We must eliminate distractions, and everybody has to wrestle one bout on Saturday.

“We will be managing our volume this week. We want to make sure our guys are fresh, and they are healthy, so they are ready to go out and compete, and compete hard.”

The dual will be streamed on FloWrestling on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET.

Marquee Matchups

The premier match of the dual will be a top-10 battle at 197 pounds, as #9 Jacob Cardenas takes on #10 Michael Beard. The two split a pair of matches last year, Beard taking the dual (6-2), but Cardenas returning the favor at the EIWA Championship (10-9).

“Jacob is really tough,” Grey said. “Everybody has their style. He might not be the most prolific scorer, but that is OK. In duals, we have pushed him out of his comfort zone a bit and challenged him to look for bonus when we can.

“But this bout against Beard, simple message, go win the match. He has a really good, quality opponent, and his job come Saturday is to win his match and that does his job to help our team.”

Since the Cliff Keen, Cardenas has won all five of his dual matchups, including four over ranked foes. In Nashville, he pinned #13 Stephen Little of Little Rock before taking out #17 Mac Stout of Pitt (2-1) later in the day. Last weekend he posted an 8-2 decision over #23 Luke Georg in Columbus and then an 11-1 major decision over VT’s #26 Andy Smith. 

His only two losses this season are to a pair of former NCAA finalists both ranked in the top-five nationally, Trent Hidlay of NC State and Tanner Sloan of South Dakota State.

“I’m excited for him, and I know he has been excited for this bout for some time,” Grey said. “That should be a fun scrap for sure.”

Another battle to keep an eye on will be at 125 pounds. We know Cornell will send out #14 Brett Ungar. The Cornell coaching staff is expecting Lehigh to counter with true-freshman, #6 Luke Stanich. Stanich is still technically in redshirt, as he does not have five competition dates yet.

“I think we will see the Ungar-Stanich matchup,” Grey said. “Ungar did a nice job against Ohio State, and he got beat in a funky position against Virginia Tech to give up that early takedown and pursued the rest of the match but couldn’t quite get it back.

“(Stanich) is a stingy kid, who has a really good skill set for a freshman. We are going to lean on Brett’s age and his having been in these situations before. It will be a good bout, but I really like Brett’s savviness and hopefully his experience will win out.”

Zagreb Open Update

Unfortunately, due to bad weather which led to flight delays, Yianni Diakomihalis will not be able to compete at the Zagreb Open in Croatia this week. Current Cornell assistant coach Nick Gwiazdowski is still scheduled to wrestle at the event.

“The flight got delayed out of Newark, and Yianni would have only had one day to acclimate and prepare so he ended up not going,” Grey said. “We will bring in some training partners for him and he will have a nice training camp in preparation for his wrestle-off with Nick Lee. Gwiz competes a day later, so it still worked out for him.”

The Diakomihalis-Lee wrestle-off will take place February 3 in Colorado, and the winner will represent USA Wrestling at the 2024 Pan American Olympic Games Qualifier (Feb. 28 – March 1), vying to earn the U.S. a spot at the 2024 Olympic Games in their weight class.