Moses pulled a no-show on the Harvard wrestling team, and the Crimson could conjure no miracles to part the Red sea--Cornell swamped the Crimson, 34-5, at the MAC Saturday.

The confidence of seven straight wins, the marked improvement over last year's squad, and the hard work of the last few weeks couldn't save the Crimson (0-1 Ivy) from sinking against a team like Cornell (2-0).

"We wrestled well," Assistant Coach Paul Widerman said, "but not well enough."

Harvard has been spoiled by less competitive teams thus far, and was not prepared to face a powerhouse like Cornell.

"The team needs more experience with better competition in order to rise to that level to win a match like that," Widerman said.

This disadvantage took the air out of some of the stronger Crimson wrestlers, making what should have been close matches, like the 134-lb. bout between Sam Cole and Big Red's Mark Fergeson, not so close. Harvard hoped to cash in on these key matches, but ended up in the red.

Fergeson jumped right into the match, taking Cole down and putting him on his back for five points. In the second period, Cole came alive, peeling Fergeson off of him, and taking him down. Fergeson escaped, and as the time ticked down, Cole just couldn't turn back the flood, losing 7-3.

"We knew how good Sam Cole is. We have a tremendous amount of respect for his ability and his work ethic," Cornell Coach Jack Spates said, "but Mark Fergeson is special, he really is."

But "special" doesn't necessarily equal "unbeatable."

"I think Sam could beat him." Widerman said. "But, to beat someone of that caliber you need to have studied him a little bit. You start to have a strategy, some tactics."

Cole thought out his tactics, but a period late and a grade short.

"Fergeson had really good shots," Widerman said, "so he would penetrate and Sam didn't shut off the shot. Sam was attacking from the shot, and doing a pretty good job of it, but not completely enough. But as the match went on you could see Sam got out of three or four hairy positions. I thought that was real progress."

The bright spot of the day for Harvard was the other key match, at 118-lbs. with Nick Cianciola and Cornell's David Sims.

Cianciola struggled to keep Sims down on the mat, but even when the Big Red slipped away, Cianciola had little problem taking him down again.

"After I scored the take-down at the end of the second period, and I was up, 4-1, I felt pretty confident that I could win," Cianciola said.