By Mark Walters

St. Louis, Mo.-Led by two All-American performances, the Hofstra wrestling team finished 15th at the NCAA Tournament last weekend. Senior Charles Griffin finished third in the 141-pound weight class for the second straight year, and Alton Lucas, a junior at 174 pounds, finished eighth.

Sophomores Lou Ruggirello, at 133 pounds, and Jonny Bonilla-Bowman, at 157 pounds, as well as senior Joe Rovelli at 197 pounds all finished one win away from becoming All-Americans.

Senior Dave Tomasette, at 125 pounds, lost in the second round of the consolation bracket. Redshirt freshman Ryan Patrovich, at 165 pounds, lost in the first consolation round.

The University of Iowa dominated the team scoring with 117.5 points, leading second place Ohio State (79) by 38.5 points. Penn State was third with 75 points, while Nebraska rounded out the top four with 74 points.

Day 1 (Thursday, March 20)

Session 1

Having completed the first session of Day 1 at the NCAA Tournament, the Pride wrestlers had sent just two of its seven national qualifiers to the consolation bracket, or wrestleback rounds.

At 133 pounds, sophomore Lou Ruggirello, seeded sixth, started things off for Hofstra in the pigtail round against Cory VomBaur of Wyoming. Ruggirello won easily by fall in 1:48.

Senior and four-time NCAA qualifier Dave Tomasette wrestled shortly thereafter at 125 pounds. The11th seed defeated Javier Maldonado from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga 15-1 to get a major decision for the Pride.

Ruggirello then faced his first round match-up, Stephen Hromada from UT-Chattanooga, just about 45 minutes after his easy pigtail victory.

Hromada gave Ruggirello all he had, and after a scoreless first two periods, Lou went up 1-0 in the third. Hromada took a 2-1 lead with a takedown inside the final minute, but Ruggirello responded eight seconds later as he got up from starting in the bottom position, tying the match 2-2.

The first seven minutes was just the beginning though, as the two wrestled the longest match the NCAA Championships have seen in at least 30 years, according to college wrestling historian Jay Hammond.

Ruggirello finally pulled it out after the two battled for six extra minutes, struggling to gain control of one another.

While Ruggirello toiled through overtimes and sudden victories, Pride senior and four-time NCAA qualifier Charles Griffin, seeded second at 141 pounds, wrestled his way to an easy major decision, beating Liberty’s Tim Harner 8-0.

At 157 pounds, sophomore Jonny Bonilla-Bowman got a first round bye and did not have to wrestle until Thursday’s second session.

Redshirt freshman Ryan Patrovich was sent to the wrestleback round of the 165-pound bracket, which was Hofstra’s first loss of the tournament, as he fell to Nebraska’s fifth-seeded Stephen Dwyer. It was the second time Patrovich fell to Dwyer this season.

Junior and CAA Champion Alton Lucas got things back on track for the Pride, who at one point during Patrovich’s bout heard its name over the PA in a three-way tie for second place with Big Ten powers Iowa and Penn State.

Lucas, seeded sixth at 174 pounds, took a 2-0 lead a minute into his match and continued to control his opponent, Indiana’s Trevor Perry, who he defeated 8-4 for Hofstra’s fifth win in six matches.

Senior Joe Rovelli, seeded 12th at 197 pounds, faced UNC-Greensboro’s Daren Burns. Burns took a 2-0 lead with 1:47 remaining in the second period. After tying it at two, Burns took Rovelli down to go up 4-2 with 50 seconds remaining in the bout. As time ticked under 15 seconds, Rovelli took Burns down to tie it at four, but it wasn’t enough as his opponent tacked on a point for ride time.

Session 2

The weather became warmer Thursday. As flood waters rose all along the Mississippi and as the athletes filed into St. Louis’ Scottrade Center with their headphones, carrying bags and wearing sweat suits, it was easy to tell session two was going to be more intense.

Of the five Pride wrestlers remaining in the championship bracket, only two would still be there after Thursday.

Dave Tomasette started off against Gabriel Flores, the No. 6 seed from Illinois.

Flores went up 1-0 to close the second period. Then, with 1:10 remaining to wrestle, the Illini senior took a 3-0 lead. Tomasette cut it to 3-2 with a takedown inside the final minute and let Flores up from starting beneath him to make it 4-3 and to ultimately score the match-winning takedown, but it never came.

Ruggirello met No. 11 Joe Baker from Navy and after going down 2-0, he escaped Baker and went out of bounds, but would lose 3-1 after the Navy junior scored a point for ride time.

The next two Pride wrestlers, Griffin and Bonilla-Bowman, were victorious. Griffin controlled Air Force’s Jacob Kriegbaum en route to a 6-1 victory with ride time.

Bonilla-Bowman, unseeded at 157 pounds, upset Indiana’s Brandon Becker, who was seeded fourth. Bowman went down 2-1 after being taken down in the third, but he escaped Becker and scored two on a takedown to make it 4-2.

Becker scored one for an escape, but the final decision was 5-3 as Bowman was given a point for unnecessary roughness by his Hoosier opponent.

“He came out hard, but he was getting winded later in the match and he couldn’t stay with me. He kind of felt like Jell-O towards the end,” Bonilla-Bowman said about Becker. “They were telling me he was nasty, so when I took him down, I was surprised,” he added.

“Jon had a great strategy. We talked about how we wanted to approach this match. The kid he was wrestling was very dangerous on the mat. He had to wrestle conservative, but also wrestle hard. There’s a certain way to do it. Jon, it was by the book. He wrestled a very, very smart match and that’s why he’s gonna be in the quarterfinals,” Pride Head Coach Tom Shifflet said of Bowman’s upset.

While Bowman was Hofstra’s prize upset of the day, the Pride were also on the unfortunate side of an upset shortly after Bowman’s win.

Alton Lucas lost by fall for the first time in his college career in 1:33 to Cornell’s 11th-seed, Steve Anceravage. It was the third match between them, having split the first two.

Patrovich saw his season come to an end at his first NCAA Tournament as he lost to Penn State’s Dave Rella in the 165-pound consolation bracket.

Finally, to close out the first day at 197 pounds, Joe Rovelli met Indiana’s Joe Fagiano.

Rovelli was down 4-3 to Fagiano late in the third, but sent the match into overtime via ride time. It didn’t take the Pride senior long to advance in the consolation bracket as he scored two for a takedown 31 seconds into the extra period.

“When I saw third period and I was losing by a point, I didn’t think about the fact that this could be the last match of my whole career. I knew I had to do something to try and get the win,” Rovelli said as he put his sweats on in the lower concourse of the Scottrade Center. “Today, I was pretty disappointed overall. The best thing is to put it behind me and start focusing one match at a time,” he added.

While the wheels didn’t fall off in session two, there was reason for concern.

“Except for Bowman, we’ve been getting upset. You can’t let these guys sneak up on you. They’re gonna try and pick you off and if you’re not ready to wrestle, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen,” said Hofstra Assistant Coach Joe Dubuque.

A former NCAA champion himself, Dubuque talked about how the guys need to focus going into the consolation rounds.

“Lou has the night to get refocused, so tomorrow he’s gonna wrestle a guy whose already lost, but then if he wins, he’s gonna have a guy whose just lost. He’s got a chance to pick him off when he’s not refocused. He doesn’t have the time to refocus like Lou did, so we’re kind of at an advantage a little bit cause those guys are getting thrown into the mix with us. Hopefully we can come back and refocus and get some wins under our belt cause as a team that’s what we need,” Dubuque said in the bowels of the arena.

Coach Shifflet was also optimistic heading into day two.

“This day’s over with. You can’t get it back, but you can move forward. You gotta come in tomorrow and you gotta be positive. Six guys have a chance to place. Not only are they gonna be helping themselves but they’re gonna be helping our team,” Shifflet said.

Day 2 (Friday, March 21)

Sessions 3 & 4

With the wheels still on and rolling into day two, they would become slightly looser come Friday’s end.

With two wrestlers still alive in the championship rounds of their respective weight classes and four wrestlers still alive in the wrestle-back rounds, Friday saw a lot of action for the Pride.

Charles Griffin made it to the semifinals with a win over Army’s Matt Kyler, pitting him against the sixth-seed, J. Jaggers from Ohio State.

Things started going awry when Jaggers took Griffin down several different times late in the first period to make the score 7-3 at the end of the first.

Griffin started the second on the bottom but quickly got out to make it 7-4. After a Jaggers takedown with 30 seconds remaining, Griffin trailed 9-4, but scored on an escape, making it 9-5 to close the second.

Griffin scored a takedown with 38 seconds left in the match and managed to work his ride time down, making it non-factor. Jaggers escaped to go up 10-7, but Griffin soon scored on another takedown to come within one. The Buckeye managed to escape with 21 seconds left and as time expired on Griffin’s championship dreams, he lunged and came as close as he could to scoring a takedown for the tie as time ran out.

Despite the loss, Griffin had clinched All-American status for the second straight year with his semifinal berth.

Earlier, Dave Tomasette’s career ended as he bowed out to Arizona State’s Anthony Robles, who won by default.

Lou Ruggirello won twice Friday in the wrestle-back rounds, beating Northern Iowa’s Josh Balridge by fall in 41 seconds, and then taking down Wisconsin’s Zach Tanelli by fall in 2:35.

Needing just one more decision to earn All-American status, Ruggirello lost 5-0 to Iowa State’s Nicholas Fanthorpe, seeded fifth at 133 pounds.

“I’m gonna take it as a learning experience and use it next year,” Ruggirello said about his second NCAA championship appearance. “Mentally, I just don’t think I was prepared as I should’ve been. There are some mental problems that I have to go through for next year, but I’m aware of it now,” he added.

After taking care of the fourth seed, Becker from Indiana, Jonny Bonilla-Bowman lost to Stanford’s 12th seed, Josh Zupancic, sending him to the 157-pound wrestle-back round.

There, he met Iowa State’s Cyler Sanderson, seeded seventh.

After a back and forth first period, the Cyclone took a 3-1 lead by the end of the second.

The third was where the two did battle as a 3-2 deficit for Bowman turned into a 4-3 lead. Sanderson tied it shortly thereafter, but Bowman scored a takedown to make it 6-4 with 30 seconds left. Sanderson escaped the Pride sophomore to get within one and with only 20 seconds to wrestle, Sanderson took Bowman down to seal the deal. Down 7-6, Bowman couldn’t get up from starting in the bottom position inside the final 20 seconds.

“I just gotta remember how this feels,” Bowman said during the championship bouts on Saturday. “The season starts on Monday,” Bowman added, stating that when he gets back to Hofstra he’s got 363 days left till he’s back at next year’s championships.

Joe Rovelli started his second day of the championships against Purdue’s Logan Brown. It was an easy 10-0 major decision for the Wilkes-Barre native, one of 46 qualifiers from Pennsylvania, the most of any state at the tournament.

Every time Brown went for Rovelli, he was met with a counter that resulted in a Pride takedown. Put simply, the Boilermaker couldn’t do anything.

“My style is really defensive and for it to work, it’s just a matter of how I’m feeling that day. Today, I felt on point. I was able to see the times he was coming. Before he would shoot I could time it well,” Rovelli said.

This meant another wrestle-back match shortly after his first.

Rovelli met UT-Chattanooga’s Matt Koz and handled him easily with a 13-2 major decision.

“The first match I wrestled, I feel like I was more tired just because I didn’t get a good warm-up in and everything, but for my second match I wasn’t as tired as most people would think because the first match was like a warm-up for me. I just built up off that momentum,” a sweat-dripping Rovelli said after his second match of the day.

Friday evening saw Rovelli face Nebraska’s Craig Brester, the eighth seed at 197 pounds, for the second time this season.

Brester went up 2-0 to end the first period, and it was all he needed as he won the decision 7-0 after controlling the Pride senior for most of the match.

For Brester, he was guaranteed All-American status. For Rovelli, it was the end of a stellar career at Hofstra.

Alton Lucas had a long road to become an All-American, but the exhausted junior from West Babylon, NY, would not be sent home empty-handed.

He first met Northwestern’s Nick Hayes, seeded 12th, and despite being tired, decided him 8-4.

“I gotta get a better warm-up, be better prepared,” an exasperated Lucas said about the next round. “My legs didn’t feel that good. You gotta man up. It’s a tough day at the national tournament, that’s the reason I’m here,” he added, exasperated and doubled over by the water cooler in the tunnel of the Scottrade Center.

His second match of the day came Friday afternoon against UT-Chatanooga’s Lloyd Rogers. Lucas decided Rogers 10-7 after a late, third-period takedown.

Friday night pitted Lucas against Boise State’s Nathan Lee.

Lucas was up 4-2 after the first. In the second, he had to use more than a minute of injury time to catch his breath.

With just a one-point lead to start the third, the Pride junior was let up from starting in the bottom position; a strategy used by Lee to prevent Lucas from recovering on the bottom while being ridden out by the Bronco.

Lucas then grabbed Lee’s legs as the two wrestled out of bounds, scoring two points on the takedown to take a 7-3 lead. Another takedown gave him a 9-4 advantage, and while Lee escaped for a fourth point, the Pride junior won 9-5, guaranteeing him All-American status along with teammate Charles Griffin.

“If feels great. Feels great,” Lucas said. “It just felt good getting past that barrier. I’m just glad I was able to help my team out with the score and able to help myself out. This is a big point in my career,” a tired, but relieved Lucas said. “My coach told me ‘You gotta get it if you want it.’ I just wanted it, so I got it,” he added.

Day 3 (Saturday, March 22)

Session 5

With two Pride wrestlers left standing on the final day of the 2008 NCAA Championships, in terms of All-American status, the hay was in the barn for Charles Griffin and Alton Lucas. Saturday’s bouts were all about their final place for the two All-Americans.

Griffin had to wrestle twice on the championship’s final day. Before his first match, he was cool and collected sitting on the mat at the Scottrade Center.

“It [fourth] would be a disappointment, but either way, I’m happy just to be an All-American. It’s tough itself just to get to nationals and then to become an All-American, it’s something that’s not easy. I’m proud of myself about that,” Griffin said.

For the Reading, PA, native, it’s about still being able to wrestle, and always wanting to wrestle and ultimately to win.

“Wrestling is something I love to do, so it’s easy to go out and wanna wrestle and win every time. Even after losing I still wanna come out here. I still wanna win, so it’s not that hard to bounce back for me, it’s more of being able to wrestle still,” he added.

He first met Iowa State’s Nick Gallick, who he previously beat 3-1 this season.< /p>

After two scoreless periods, the Pride senior scored twice on escapes in the third, and despite being taken down, Griffin won 3-2 via his ride time point to advance to the third place match, where he met Oklahoma State’s Nathan Morgan, seeded fourth at 141 pounds.

The two met a year ago in the same match, with Griffin winning.

In a different year, it was the same story.

Down 2-1 after two periods, Griffin seized his chance to win his last collegiate bout in the third period

Griffin went up 3-2 after he scored on a takedown that began from a reversal when he started on the bottom. This earned him valuable back points to make it 5-2 with 1:30 left.

“Halfway through the match I got a little spark, and that’s why I started picking it up and saw an opportunity, shot in on his leg, and then he kinda fell into my lap with the back points. That was not something planned, but it happened, so I gotta be thankful for that,” Griffin said after his match.

Short and muscular, Griffin’s opponent was his polar opposite, long and wiry.

“He’s taller than me, so it’s a little easier for me to get in on his legs, but it’s gonna be a lot harder for me to finish cause he’s got more of a wrap-around to lock up on me. So I stayed low on his legs and waited for him to open up to score,” Griffin said.

Done with his collegiate wrestling career, Griffin wants to give back to wrestling for all it has given him.

“Hofstra is a great place, I hope it keeps getting better and improving. I’d like to stay around on Long Island and help the program,” Griffin said.

Alton Lucas, who wrestled seven matches in three days, including four on Friday, had to be tired.

He was pinned by seventh-seeded Matthew Stolpinski of Navy 4:07 into his seventh place bout to finish eighth.

“I was just exhausted today. Every bone in my body, every muscle in my body was aching. Honestly I just wanted to get this day over with. Not taking any credit from the other guy, but I was just overwhelmed with excitement and wrestling six straight matches,” Lucas said after receiving his All-American trophy.

He said while he achieved his goal of becoming All-American, he didn’t place as high as he wanted and said he didn’t wrestle to his full potential.

“I know what I gotta improve on, as Jonny said, that starts on Monday,” Lucas said about preparing for next season.

For the Pride, a 15th place finish was the end of a tough weekend, and a disappointment compared to last year’s seventh place finish, led by four All-Americans.

“I think I just got motivated to work harder, to improve the program, and get back on track. I’m gonna go home and write some things down and figure out what we need to improve on individually,” Shifflet said after the dust had finally settled. “I’m not satisfied where we finished up. I certainly think we can be doing what some of these other teams did that are ahead of us.

“It’s a tough weekend. For me as a coach, it’s obviously a lot different from the athlete, but I’ve been on both sides of it and I can tell ya that this tournament is just brutal. It’s brutal emotionally, physically, mentally. It’s either your weekend or it’s not,” he said.

As for next year, it’s all about improvement for the Pride.

“I gotta do a better job to prepare these guys. I gotta get these guys to understand what it takes to become a national champion, but this is not an easy tournament. These guys that win a national title, you gotta take your hat off to them, ’cause that’s a special person. As a team at Hofstra, we gotta get over the hump; quite a few guys in the last few years losing in the semifinals, or guys losing in the All-American rounds and we’re starting to pick it up a little bit, but we gotta do more,” Shifflet said.