By Mike Rudin – SPORTS EDITOR
The Hofstra Pride wrestling team entered Madison Square Garden for the fourth annual Grapple at the Garden on Sunday. The Pride lost back-to-back dual meets to Princeton University, 33-9, then to University of Maryland, 24-13.
“The effort level wasn’t enough, we got out-toughed. [But] we had some bright spots,” Hofstra head coach Dennis Papadatos said after both matches.“But they made a ton of mistakes … they got to minimize that because we got to have a better result against teams that I think that we can beat.”
Both losses pushed the Pride back 0-5 to start the 2015-16 season. The last time Hofstra opened up a season 0-5 was back in 2012 when the team started 0-11. Hofstra is now 3-5 at the Garden in program history.
The few bright spots on the team were Jamel Hudson, Nick Affronti and Mike Hughes – the three compiled a 6-0 record and 19 of the team’s 22 points on the day.
“I was happy with Mike Hughes. He dislocated his finger in the first 20 seconds of match [against Princeton] and he wrestled the entire match with his hand taped,” Papadatos said. “If you saw his hand, it was completely out of place. It took the doctor a half an hour after the match was over to get it back into place.”
After the Pride began 0-3 on the season and still forced to forfeit the 133-weight division, Hofstra tried to hold their heads above water to make something happen.
In the dual meet against Princeton, Hofstra started with a 12-0 deficit after Bryan Damon fell at 5:25 in the opening 125-weight division followed by the Pride’s forfeit. Yet, Jamel Hudson put the Pride on the board with a slim 14-13 decision victory over Jordan Laster at the 141-weight division.
Afterwards, Hofstra felt the sting of three-straight losses, surrendering 11 points in the 149, 157 and 165 weight matchups. Ryan Burkert lost a 3-2 decision to Mike D’Angelo while Janhlani Callender (11-4) and Bobby Fehr (16-5) lost in back-to-back major decisions.
After Hofstra fell 20 points behind and desperately needed some sort of boost, Frank Affronti stepped up and took down Princeton’s 11th-ranked Jonathon Schleifer in a 2-0 shutout decision. He doubled Hofstra’s score but it wasn’t enough in the end.
Cory Damiana’s 12-3 major decision loss and Omar Haddad’s fall at 1:14 cost the Pride another 10 points in the following matchups.
In the last matchup, Mike Hughes toppled Ray O’Donnell in a 4-2 decision to take the 285-weight division and ended the dual meet against Princeton on a positive note.
The Pride as well as the rest of the competition took an approximate 30-minute breather before round two of the Grapple at the Garden started.
Hofstra squared off against University of Maryland and the story started in similar fashion. The Pride fell early 9-0 after Maryland’s Pat D’Arcy disposed of Bryan Daman in the 125 followed by Hofstra forced to forfeit again in the 133.
“We have a small roster obviously. In this month, we have the smallest roster in the country and it really hurts on depth,” Papadatos said. “The only issue I really have with it is when we have a few guys struggling mentally and we have no choice but to put them in.”
Hudson broke Maryland’s streak with his second win of the day by a 6-3 decision against Alfred Bannister. Deja vu as Hudson’s win in the 141-weight division put Hofstra’s first points on the board again, cutting Maryland’s lead to 9-3.
Yet, things got uglier afterwards against the Maryland Terrapins. Burkert, Callender and Fehr were sent packing against their respective opponents that cost Hofstra 12 points in three straight matches.
Burket’s fall at 2:25 was the main factor while Callender’s 8-6 and Fehr’s 4-2 decision losses added to Hofstra’s snowballing problems.
Then a breath of fresh air came back into Pride wrestling with back-to-back wins from Frank Affronti and Jermaine John. Affronti shut down Josh Snook with a 4-0 decision in the 174lb matchup while John overpowered Jason Smith in a 6-4 decision at the 184.
“I’m happy with his consistency. He believes in where he’s good and we let him wrestle in there,” Papadatos said about Affronti’s performance.
At that point, Hofstra was down 21-9 and needed to win the remaining two weight divisions – Hofstra needed to win the last two through back-to-back falls to gather the necessary 12 points – in order to at least avoid the loss with a tie.
But that sliver of hope died with Omar Haddad once he struggled to outperform. He ended up on the losing end of a 1-0 decision at the 197-weight division.
Mike Hughes took the stage against Youssif Hemida for Hofstra’s last matchup of the day. “Superman” Hughes shut Hemida down for the 8-0 major decision to wrap up Hofstra’s day at Madison Square Garden.
Hofstra aims to not follow the footsteps of the 2012 team and will look to break their losing streak at the two-day Cliff Keen-Las Vegas Invitational. Day one commences on Dec. 4 at 9 a.m. and day two on Dec. 5 at the same time.
