In the NCAA Wrestling Championships from March 15 to 17 in St. Louis, Mo., the Harvard wrestling team experienced emotions on both sides of the spectrum.

On the one hand, junior Steven Keith, who was ranked No. 11 at the 133-pound weight class, defeated the sixth-ranked grappler on the first day of competition before finishing in eighth place to merit All-American honors.

No. 4-ranked junior co-captain Walter Peppelman, meanwhile, lost his first contest of the tournament but won four straight matches in the Wrestlebacks before falling to No. 6-ranked James Fleming in the 157-pound weight class. That performance also led to an eighth-place finish and his second All-American honors.

While unranked co-captain Corey Jantzen, who was sidelined most of the season due to injury, upset No. 10 Cam Tessari of Ohio State University to open up the tournament, subsequent losses to the No. 7- and No. 4-ranked opponents kept Jantzen off of the podium.

The Crimson’s final grappler, freshman James Fox, did not win a match in the 197-pound class, but he wrestled two close matches that proved him worthy of his at-large bid.

As a team, Harvard went 9-10 for the tournament, landing the team in 30th place out of 64 colleges with 17.0 points.

Jantzen went 1-2 over the three days, and his shoulder injury proved problematic. Though he didn’t place in the tournament, the senior left his imprint.

“[Jantzen] is one of the most talented people I’ve ever met—works his ass off,” Keith said. “It’s unfortunate that he never had a full season without injuries, but he’s someone I look up to, and I know he’s a little disappointed, but he’s impacted the wrestling world in a way that he doesn’t realize.”

Fox wrestled in two tight matches in his first NCAA tournament, losing to the No. 8 seed, 12-8, before falling, 4-1, in the first round of the Wrestlebacks.

“Just being a freshman, he didn’t quite have the experience under his belt, but he’ll be back, and he’ll do well,” Keith said.

“I think, after a good summer, a couple more months training, and getting used to college wresting, he’s going to do really well next year,” Peppelman agreed. “He showed a lot of promise.”

Keith began with a pigtail match against Geoffrey Alexander from the University of Maryland, whom he defeated, 8-0, and then went on to get the decisions over University of Oklahoma’s Jordan Keller and No. 6 Devin Carter from Virginia Tech, 8-4 and 8-6, respectively.

The upset over Carter was a milestone for Keith and epitomized his success in the tournament.

“[Keith] probably wrestled the best match of his career against Devin Carter,” Peppelman said. “Carter is a very tough wrester, and Steven just dominated him from start to finish. He really wrestled a fabulous tournament.”

In the quarterfinals, Keith’s hopes at a national championship were dashed when he was pinned by No. 3 Tony Ramos from the University of Iowa at 1:37.