In a familiar ending, the American University men's wrestling team dropped their fourth straight match on Sunday, losing to Old Dominion by a slim margin in the final bout.
American was able to keep a 20-17 lead heading into the heavyweight match, but Old Dominion redshirt freshman Matt Pellar proved to be too much for redshirt junior Evan Murtaugh, who was pinned in 2:04 to give ODU the 23-20 win.
The Eagles started out strong when freshman Jasen Borshoff pinned Kyle Hutter in the 125 match to give American an early 6-0 lead.
The team ran into some trouble in the next two matchups, when sophomore Jordan Lipp (133) and freshman Kyle Borshoff (145) went down in consecutive matches to put the Monarchs ahead, but major decisions by redshirt freshman Mike Cannon (165) and sophomore Rudy Rueda (174) helped the Eagles regain the lead.
In the night's most anticipated match, a big win by No. 4 Josh Glenn in the 197 against ODU standout David Mendoza kept the Eagles ahead until Mutaugh fell in the evening's final contest.
American didn't fare much better on Friday night, falling to the University of Maryland with a team score of 22-15 in their last home meet of the season.
Even with over 1,100 fans in attendance, the Eagles were unable to overcome an early deficit after losing two of the first three matches, including a frustrating loss in the first match by Jasen Borshoff who was pinned in the final seconds after being ahead.
"We had to win those matches," AU coach Mark Cody said. "They can't wrestle five minutes in a seven-minute match. It's just mental at that point."
After being out for six weeks with high sprains in each ankle, Kyle Borshoff fell to his opponent in 6:40, 20 seconds short of the final buzzer.
"He's beaten ranked guys before, he's just out of shape," Cody said after the match. "But he will get in shape over the next week. He wrestled hard, and he gets tired when he wrestles hard."
Three AU wrestlers defeated top-15 ranked opponents, including Mike Cannon's victory over No. 11 Jason Kiessling. Cannon and Kiessling, who are from the same hometown and were wrestling partners in high school, gave the crowd a hard-fought match in which Cannon defeated the senior with a score of 8-4.
Rudy Rueda beat No. 12 Mike Letts with a 9-5 decision win. The final win in the match came from junior All-American Glenn when he shutout No. 14 Hudson Taylor, 7-0.
Seniors Dwayne Hash-Barberis and Damian Swietlik were honored at the start of the evening, recognized on senior night for their contributions to the team. Hash-Barberis has been a four-year starter for American with 33 career wins, while Swietlik is a 2006-'07 team captain with 10 wins this season.
With a little more than a month until the NCAA championships, the Eagles travel to Pennsylvania to face East Stroudsburg on Friday and will take on Binghamton on Saturday. Both matches are set to start at 1 p.m.
