After a 10-day hiatus, the Hofstra University wrestling team was back in action in Baltimore, Maryland, on Wednesday, Dec. 20, where they beat the Morgan State University Bears (MSU) and the Bloomsburg University Huskies in dual meet action. The Pride bested the Bears 37-3 and the Huskies 27-14. Hofstra won nine of the 10 bouts against MSU, before winning six matches against Bloomsburg with three wins by pin. The pair of victories makes Hofstra 2-2 on the season.
No. 21 Keaton Kluever won both of his matches by pin at 285 pounds, while Dylan Ryder moved up to 133 pounds to win a match by technical fall and one by pin. Ross McFarland also had a pair of victories, one pin and one decision at 174 pounds, and Alex Turley, Jurius Clark and Will Conlon also earned two victories.
Kluever, who bookended both duals for the Pride, pinned both MSU’s Tyler Stewart and Bloomsburg’s Tyler McCatharn. These marked Kluever’s 5th and 6th pins of the season and he has now won all of his matches this season by fall.
Moving up a weight class seemed to have no impact on Ryder’s performance as he returned to competition after missing the dual against No. 1 Pennsylvania State University. Ryder went unscored upon in both of his matches, beating Kevin Lopez of MSU 15-0 and pinning Major Lewis of Bloomsburg.
McFarland also returned to action after missing the Penn State dual, winning his first match of the day with a 6-0 decision over Kyle Grey before pinning Josh Bonomo to help the Pride take the lead over the Huskies from 12-11 to 18-11.
At 141 pounds, Turley picked up a win by decision over Tommy Fiero, before narrowly beating Michael Cassidy 2-1. At 157 pounds, Clark returned to competition after missing the last month due to injury and won his first match against Josh Greenwood by a major decision 14-1 and his second against William Morrow by decision 5-1. And at 184 pounds, Conlon earned his first dual meet victory as a member of the Pride, with close matches against Kingsley Menifee and Tanner Culver where he won by decision, 6-4 and 6-2, respectively.
As for the rest of the Pride, Dylan Acevedo earned one win by major decision 16-6 against MSU at 125 pounds, Noah Tapia had an 11-1 major decision victory against MSU and a loss in overtime against Bloomsburg at 149 pounds, and Nikolas Miller picked up a 13-2 major decision victory against MSU at 197 pounds.
The Pride returns to action against PennWest Edinboro on Friday, Dec. 22, at home at the David S. Mack Physical Education Center at 7 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Pete Coco/Hofstra Athletics
