The Hofstra University wrestling team continued their dual meet win streak with a 27-9 victory over Penn West Edinboro on Friday, Dec. 22. The Pride won seven of the 10 weights with three major decision victories and one pin. The win moves the Pride to 3-2 on the season after their wins earlier in the week over Morgan State University and Bloomsburg University.
“Overall, I thought it was sloppy,” said head coach Dennis Papadatos. “We missed out on so many scoring opportunities, even in matches we won. But I will say, I think we wrestled tough; I don’t think we wrestled well, but I thought we wrestled tough in a lot of situations.”
Captain Ross McFarland earned the only win by fall, pinning Joey Arnold in just 57 seconds. McFarland got a quick takedown before using a two-on-one tilt for a pin at 174 pounds to put the Pride up 20-6.
“He’s healthy right now, and he looked excited before the match today,” Papadatos said. “He told me he was going to go out and kick some butt today.”
Before McFarland’s win, Jurius Clark and Jake Slotnick both secured major decision victories to help the Pride take the lead. At 157 pounds, Clark was up 6-0 during the match before cutting Steffan Lynch and getting a last-second takedown to win 10-1. At 165 pounds, Slotnick, a true freshman, competed in his first dual meet for the Pride. Against Max Kirby, he went into the third period up 10-5 before continuing to work to ultimately win 17-7.
“Slotnick was a nice little spark plug,” Papadatos said. “I’ve told everyone, man, he’s my little sleeper, and that’s his third date we used. I’m really trying to redshirt him, but I actually think he could be very good, and I like him a lot.”
Keaton Kluever, a transfer student from the University of Minnesota, rounded out the dual with another major decision win over Nick Lodato. The win was Kluever’s first seven-minute match of the season. During the match there was an argument on whether he had pinned Lodato; however, Kluever still dominated the match to win 15-4.
“I’m glad that Keaton wrestled a seven-minute match,” Papadatos said. “That’s why I was like, just keep it, I don’t want to throw the brick; let’s just keep scoring points, we need to get better for NCAA.”
Dylan Ryder once again moved up to 133 pounds to fight for a 7-1 victory over Jacob Brenneman. Earlier in the day, Edinboro took on Long Island University, losing 29-3 with Brenneman being the only Fighting Scot to win a match. At 149 pounds, Noah Tapia worked for a 6-2 decision over Colin Roberts to tie the team score 6-6. Finally, Will Conlon earned a win at 184 pounds against Brody Evans. Conlon won 7-2, working for a takedown in the last 30 seconds of the match.
“[Conlon] is ridiculously smart, like ridiculously smart, and he’s just really cerebral and he knows where he’s good and he knows his limitations,” Papadatos said. “He’s super savvy for a true freshman.”
The Pride will take a short break before coming back to competition at the Franklin and Marshall Open on Friday, Jan. 5, before returning home to take on No. 4 North Carolina State University on Sunday, Jan. 7.
Photo courtesy of Pete Coco/Hofstra Athletics
