“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him wrestle,” Keith said. “He brings so much to the team. He just loves the sport.”
“[Knapp] hasn’t wrestled in a long time, so it was really fun for me to see him just get on the mat,” Weiss added. “He’s got a lot in store. He’s going to do a great job this semester—I know that.”
No. 14 RUTGERS 32, HARVARD 9
In the afternoon matchup, the Crimson fell to a talented Scarlett Knight squad led by a trio of ranked wrestlers in No. 5 Dominick Russo, No. 6 Mario Mason, and No. 20 Daryl Cocozzo.
Rutgers jumped out to an early 20-0 lead behind major wins from Russo and Mike Wagner, but the Crimson made it competitive down the stretch, racking up three wins in the final five bouts.
Keith sparked the Harvard comeback, battling back from an early 2-0 deficit to grab the 4-2 decision. After evening the score at two at the end of the first period, Keith took the lead off a takedown in the third, securing the Crimson its first win of the day.
“Steven is always a spark plug for us because he goes out and wrestles hard all the time,” Weiss said. “We were planning on that. He does a nice job.”
Warren followed on Keith’s performance, securing a second win for Harvard to cut the Scarlett Knights’ lead to 20-6.
Taking on Rutgers’ Mike DeMarco, Warren took an early 2-0 lead and never looked back. DeMarco pulled within one, but Warren rattled off a 2-0 run before the final whistle to score the 4-1 victory.
“I think [Warren] wrestled the hardest out there today,” Weiss said. “He kept wrestling from start to finish.”
The Scarlett Knights responded with back-to-back wins, but the Crimson closed out the match on a high note when Peppelman earned a 2-0 decision over Cocozzo. In the battle between two ranked foes, neither grappler was able to get on the scoreboard until Peppelman earned a late takedown.
“That was a good match for him,” Weiss said of Peppelman. “He just wrestled every position really tough, and that’s what you’ve got to do every time. You can’t take a break, and he did a good job with that.
—Staff writer Martin Kessler can be reached at martin.kessler@college.harvard.edu.