16 wrestlers on Team USA's men’s freestyle squad traveled to Warsaw, Poland to compete at the Waclaw Ziolkowski Memorial International tournament, July 20-21. In total, 9 wrestlers took home medals from this challenging senior-level event. Check out a full recap for Team USA, along with videos of the most notable matches.

Colon, Carr, and Aiello Win Gold

Joe Colon, David Carr, and Jay Aiell came with gold for the United States in Poland. Despite earning the same color medal, Colon had had a very different final match compared to Carr and Aiello. Colon got out to a big lead against Ukraine’s Taras Markovych before holding on for a high-scoring 16-13 win. Carr and Aiello, on the other hand, were dominant from start to finish. Carr won 11-0 in the finals over Zelimkhan Tohuzov (UKR) and had 3 technical superiority victories to make the finals, leaving him with 4 wins by a combined score of 46-3. Aiello wrestled only three matches and outscored his opponents by a combined score of 27-0. Aiello's most impressive win of the day was over Ukriane's Andriy Vlasov - a 5th place finisher at the 2021 world championships. 

Colon's finals match starts at 5:04:35 and Carr's finals match starts at 6:25:16

Aiello's win over Vlasov at 3:05:45 in the video below:

Pantaleo Gets Silver - Beats World Champ

Alec Pantaleo fell just short in the finals, losing to #16 Arman Andreasyan, 3-2. Pantaleo scored the only takedown of the match in the first period but was put on the clock twice in the second period and surrendered a step-out point. Though he lost in the finals, Pantaleo had an impressive win over 2017 world champion Zurabi Iakobishvili in his opening round match of the day proving he’s still one of the top 70kg wrestlers in the world.

Watch Pantaleo's win over Iakobishvili at 1:01:00 below:

Cassioppi Wins Silver With Roller-Coaster Matches

Tony Cassioppi had an impressive run to the finals winning 3 matches before coming up short against Poland's #19 Robert Baran, 3-0. On his way to the finals, Cassioppi defeated former Campbell wrestler Jere Heino (FIN) in his opening match before wrestling a 26-point thriller against Georgia's Solomon Manashvili. In that match, Cassioppi fell behind 8-6 but got his offense going, scoring 12 unanswered points for the technical superiority victory. Then, in the semi-finals, Cassioppi took on Poland's #2 heavyweight, Kamil Kosciolek. In that match, Cassioppi scored 10 points before coming out on top with a pin against the 2014 junior world medalist Kosciolek. 

Watch Cassioppi's win over Manashvili at 2:12:40 in the video below:

Bronze For Arujau, DeSanto, McKenna, & McFadden

Vito Arujau, Austin DeSanto, Joey McKenna, and David McFadden all had a mixed bag of results falling short to make the finals but battling back for bronze. Arujau’s lone loss of the day came against 2017 world bronze medalist Andrey Yatsenko (UKR). Though the score ended in a 9-2 decision, Arujau was much closer to Yatsenko throughout the match but gave up points toward the end of the match attempting a comeback. Arujau’s most impressive win of the day came against China’s Wanhao Zou (8-2), a former U23 world bronze medalist.

Austin DeSanto made his international wrestling debut with a dominant, 10-0 win over Valentyn Bliasetskyi (UKR). Then, in his second-round match, DeSanto came up just short against Taras Markovych (UKR). In that match, DeSanto was leading 4-3 with less than 30 seconds remaining until he shot in and gave up exposure to fall 5-4. In the bronze medal match, DeSanto impressed with an 11-0 win over fellow American and national team member Daniel Deshaser. DeSanto will likely only better his freestyle game and will be a wrestler to watch at 61kg moving forward. 

Watch Deshazer vs DeSanto at 4:52:45 on the stream below:

The two Philly wrestlers, Joey McKenna and David McFadden, had mirror tournaments suffering defeats in their third-round match before winning their fourth match for bronze. McKenna dropped a close, 2-1 bout to Mongolia’s Tsogbakrakh Tseveensuren before defeating Bienkowski for bronze. McFadden dropped his match to #18 Vasyl Mykhailov, 6-0, before taking out Csaba Vida (HUN), 11-0 for bronze. Also of note, McFadden defeated fellow American Alex Marinelli in a quick, 10-0 technical superiority. In that match, McFadden used a crotch lift for 2 points and then transitioned immediately to 4 gut wrenches to close out the match.

Watch Marinelli vs McFadden at 1:23:10 below:

Full Results For Team USA

57 kg: Vitali Arujau - Bronze

• 11-3 win Robert Dingashvili (GEO) 
• 9-2 loss to Andrey Yatsenko (UKR) 
• 8-2 win over Wanhao Zou (CHN) 
• 12-2 win over Giorgi Gegelashvili 

61 kg: Daniel Deshazer - 5th

• 6-4 loss to Taras Markovych (UKR) 
• 5-2 win over Valentyn Bliasetskyi (UKR) 
• 11-0 loss to Austin DeSanto 

61 kg: Austin Desanto - Bronze

• 10-0 win over Valentyn Bliasetskyi (UKR) 
• 5-4 loss to Taras Markovych (UKR) 
• 11-0 win over Daniel Deshazer 

61 kg: Joe Colon - Gold

• 10-0 win over Nils Leutert (SUI) 
• 13-3 win over Minghu Liu (CHN) 
• 16-13 win over Taras Markovych (UKR) 

65 kg: Joey McKenna - Bronze

• 10-0 win over Vasyl Shuptar (UKR) 
• 9-2 win Nino Leutert (SUI) 
• 2-1 loss to Tsogbakrakh Tseveensuren (MGL) 
• 3-1 win over Kryzystof Bienkowski (POL) 

65 kg: Matt Kolodzik - 5th

• 11-8 loss to Tsogbakrakh Tseveensuren (MGL) 
• 10-0 win over Tony Tolbert 
• 7-5 loss to Vasyl Shuptar (UKR) 

65 kg: Tony Tolbert - DNP

• Loss by fall (losing 4-0) to Tornike Katamadze (GEO) 
• 10-0 loss to Matt Kolodzik

70 kg: Alec Pantaleo - Silver

• 2-1 win over Zurabi Iakobishvili (GEO) 
• 6-2 Oleksy Boruta (UKR) 
• 3-2 loss to Arman Andreasyan (ARM) 

70 kg: Yahya Thomas - 5th

• 5-4 loss to Igor Nykyforuk (UKR) 
• 5-0 win over Marc Dietsche (SUI) 
• 4-3 loss to Oleksy Boruta (UKR) 

74 kg: David Carr - Gold

• 13-2 win over Meng Menghejigan (CHN) 
• 12-1 win over Shengsong Xia (CHN) 
• 10-0 win over Giorgi Sulava (GEO) 
• 11-0 win over Zelimkhan Tohuzov (UKR) 

79 kg: David McFadden - Bronze

• 10-0 win over Kieto Pacheco (ANG) 
• 10-0 win over Alex Marinell (USA) 
• 6-0 loss to Vasyl Mykhailov (UKR) 
• 11-0 win over Csaba Vida (HUN) 

79 kg: Alex Marinelli DNP

• 11-0 Mateusz Pedzicki (POL) 
• 10-0 loss to David McFadden (USA) 
• 10-0 win over Erik Erinbok (EST) 
• 15-13 loss to Csaba Vida (HUN) 

92 kg: Jay Aiello - Gold

• 11-0 win over Patryk Dublinowski (POL)
• 11-0 Andriy Vlasov (UKR) 
• 5-0 win over Radoslaw Marcinkiewicz (POL) 

97 kg: Mike Macchiavello - 5th

• 11-0 win over Thomas Barns (AUS)
• 5-4 win over Tuerxnub Muheite (CHN) 
• 8-6 loss to Givi Matcharashvili (GEO) 
• 9-1 loss to Elizbar Odikadze (GEO)

125 kg: Derek White - 5th

• 7-0 loss to Daniel Ligeti (HUN) 
• 1-1 win over Oleksandr Koldovskyi (UKR)
• 2-1 win over Zhiwei Deng (CHN) 
• 11-0 loss to Kamil Kosciolek (POL)

125 kg: Tony Cassioppi - Silver

• 5-0 win over Jere Heino (FIN) 
• 18-8 win over Solomon Manashvili (GEO) 
• Win by fall (winning 10-5) over Kamil Kosciolek (POL) 
• 3-0 loss to Robert Baran (POL)