Takedown Report

2024 EIWA Championship Finals Recap

By Austin Sommer
The 120^th EIWA Championships has concluded and the team scoring was as close as it’s been in awhile. The 2024 EIWA Team Championship was won by Cornell University with 164.5 team points, three champions, and nine NCAA qualifiers. In second place was Lehigh  with 159.5 points, four champions, and eight NCAA qualifiers.
Finishing in the top-three as a team was Army West Point with 95.5 points and six NCAA qualifiers. Columbia and Penn tied for fourth place with 90.5 each. Columbia had two champions and will qualify three wrestlers to NCAAs. Penn did not have any champions, but qualified five wrestlers to NCAAs.
For all results, see link here 2024 EIWA Results
Key Takeaways:
Lehigh crowned four individual champs, Cornell finished with three, Columbia with two, and Navy with one champion.
Anthony D’Alesio becomes LIU’s first NCAA D1 qualifier in school history
Ryan Crookham was named Outstanding Wrestler after winning 133lbs title
Kevin Ward of Army West Point ws voted EIWA Coach of the Year
Michael Joyce is Brown’s first NCAA qualifier since 2019
Julian Ramirez of Cornell is the lone repeat champion

125 (5 Automatic Bids – NCAA qualifiers in bold at all weights below)
The top two seeds met in the finals. Lehigh’s Luke Stanich proved why he was the top seed with a 6-0 win over Cornell’s Ungar. Stanich widened the gap from their previous meeting in January. Army’s Berginc took out Brown’s Joyce 5-3 for third. Max Gallagher of Penn won via medical forfeit ovr Sotelo of Harvard. Some ranked wrestlers looking for an at-large bid include Sotelo of Harvard, who had to medically forfeit to 6^th place. The other is American’s Jack Maida. He placed 8^th after medically forfeiting both matches on day 2.
1^st – Luke Stanich (Lehigh) DEC Brett Ungar (Cornell), 6-0
3^rd – Ethan Berginc (Army West Point) DEC Mike Joyce (Brown), 5-3
5^th – Max Gallagher (Pennsylvania) M FOR Diego Sotelo (Harvard), 0-0 0:00
7^th – Robert Sagaris (Long Island University) M FOR Jack Maida (American), 0-0 0:00

133 (5 Automatic Bids)
The top two seeds were in the finals here also. This was one of the most anticipated match-ups in the entire country – and it lived up to the hype. Crookham scored a takedown with under 30-seconds left to secure the win. Braden Basile of Army kept the momentum rolling for him and the team, with another 3^rd place finish for the Black Knights. In a winner-take-all bout for 5^th place, American’s Max Leete won a thrilling match in tiebreakers over Sacred Heart’s Andrew Fallon. To add to the drama, Fallon was a teammate with Leete at American before transferring to Sacred Heart. There are a few ranked wrestlers who failed to place at 133 looking for an at-large selection. Michael Colaiocco of Penn and Mason Leiphart of Franklin & Marshall fall into this category. Micah Roes of Binghamton earned 7^th place, and will be on the bubble to earn an at-large bid.
1^st – Ryan Crookham (Lehigh) DEC Vito Arujau (Cornell), 10-6
3^rd – Braden Basile (Army West Point) DEC Kurt Phipps (Bucknell), 9-3
5^th – Maximilian Leete (American) DEC Andrew Fallon (Sacred Heart), 2-2 TB2 … story at … EIWAwrestling.org/sports/wrest/2023-24/releases
And …

The Six Biggest Storylines At The 2024 EIWA Championships
A breakdown of the biggest storylines heading into the 2024 EIWA Championships set to go down March 8-9 in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Mar 5, 2024 by Jon Kozak
The 2024 EIWA Championships are set to go down March 8-9 and will feature some of the nation’s top wrestlers with over 50 NCAA qualifying spots on the line. This event will be live-streamed only on FloWrestling but before it begins, check out the below article to get a breakdown of the biggest storylines leading into the EIWA Championships.
2024 EIWA Championship
More Content for the 2024 EIWA Championships
Schedule | Seeds | Crookham vs Arujau Preview
Who Wins The Ryan Crookham vs Vito Arujau Rematch?
We took a deep dive into the potential rematch between Crookham and Arujau in this article, but it’s worth highlighting it here because it is the biggest potential match that could go down at EIWAs (or any conference). Crookham took the college wrestling world by surprise when he defeated world and NCAA champion Arujau in the second week of the college season. However, almost immediately after the match, the popular opinion was that Arujau would win in the rematch. 
Since then, Crookham has proven throughout the season that the win over Arujau may not have been the fluke most thought. He’s currently 15-0 on the season with notable wins over Connor McGonagle, Vince Santaniello, Aaron Nagao, and Michael Colaiocco. On the other side of things, Arujau took about a month off the mat after the loss to Crookham but has rattled off 8 straight wins and looks to be rounding back into last season’s championship form. I expect the potential final match between Arujau and Crookham to be highly competitive and one of the best matches of the entire weekend. … story at … Flowrestling.org/6-biggest-storylines-at-the-2024-eiwa-championships

March 20, 2024 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized