It's a Saturday night and Goldfarb Gymnasium is packed with fans, parents and alumni ready to welcome the beginning of the Hopkins wrestling season. The Black and Blue Brawl is traditionally the biggest event of the year for the team, yet it's a competition in which the team as a whole has no opponent.
At the beginning of each season, the wrestling team divides into two separate squads: the black team and the blue team. The Black and Blue Brawl is a full match between these two teams, giving the wrestlers a chance to compete for a starting spot in the lineup and giving the coaching staff an opportunity to showcase and examine some of the team's young talent.
It is a tradition implemented by fifth-year head coach Keith Norris that traditionally draws in a number of parent and alumni spectators as well as a large pool of potential recruits who get the opportunity of seeing first-hand what Hopkins wrestling is all about.
One problem with the Black and Blue Brawl is the fact that the competitors have been practicing with each other for weeks.
Members of the respective black and blue teams traditionally face off against their in-practice wrestling partners and are generally familiar with their opponents' techniques and styles. What results is typically a series of slow yet competitively close matches.
This proved to be the case in the opening match as sophomore Adam Stevens squared off against Baltimore freshman Teno Boone. After a first-period stalemate, Boone scored an escape in the second leading to yet another long series of shoot-and-defend with zero scoring. Stevens scored an escape in the third period, but not before Boone was able to earn the one riding time point that would lead him to win the match by a score of 2-1. After a 133-pound forfeit to Paul Marcello, junior team captain Rocky Barilla faced Ohio freshman Matt Nelson in the 141-pound division. Barilla was able to score two takedown points in the first period and an escape in the second to secure a three-point lead entering the third period. Nelson earned an escape in the third with 1:30 left on the clock, but Barilla was able to fend off Nelson's shots to stall out a 4-1 victory.
Nelson's close-fought battle with Barilla (who posted an impressive 28-17 record last season) exemplifies the freshman talent of the very young Hopkins team.
"This probably is one of the best freshmen classes we've had," junior team captain Eric Levenseller said.
"I think our freshmen are getting tougher each year," junior 174-pounder and former Centennial Conference Champion Patrick Stanley said. "Each incoming class is getting better every year and this seems like one of our better freshman classes."
At 149 pounds, sophomore Michael Testa and Ben Kauffman fought out yet another close match with Kauffman coming out on top by a score of 5-3. Also at 149 pounds, sophomore Kyle Bieg earned a one-sided victory against junior Xavier Mohammed by a score of 10-2.
The freshman talent rose once again at 157 pounds as freshman Joseph Gowen challenged junior Robbie Nedbor-Gross, losing 7-5.
The match of the night came at the first 165-pound showdown, as freshmen Salvatore Rizzo and Ben Elder fought their way to a 7-7 tie in the middle of the third period.
In the closing seconds of the match, Elder pulled off a match-winning double-leg takedown to come out on top 9-7.
The rest of the match was relatively one-sided and predictable. Levenseller defeated freshman Dylan Meade by an injury default. In the third 165-pound match, freshman Andrew Giannascoli toppled freshman Stuart Corless by a 17-2 technical fall. At 184 pounds, sophomore Hector Cintron, ended his freshman career with an impressive fourth-place finish at the Centennial Conference, pinned freshman Nick Erdenberger in 5:29. In the final match of the night, freshman 197-pounder Reid Mosquera defeated sophomore first-year collegiate 285-pounder Rick Danlikowicz by a score of 7-2.
The Black and Blue Brawl demonstrated the significant amount of young talent that the team has to offer. The Hopkins wrestling senior class is extinct, leaving a young squad with lots of room for development. But despite the average age of the team, a strong sense of promise still exists for the Jays for the 2009-2010 season.
"I think this year will be a big turning point for the program," Levenseller said. "Our team has never been this big before. We're solid up and down the lineup. We have a couple of really good recruits. I think we should be a top-20 team."
"We have to realize that we are good if we think we are, but you can't just have wishful thinking that you're going to win the Conference," Stanley said. "You have to know how hard you're going to work to be sure you're going to win. Things have to change and we're not there yet. These kids don't understand that we have a long ways to go. There are a lot of things that need to get worked on."
With significant challenges on the horizon for the team, the attitude in the wrestling room remains positive.
"I think that we all make fun of each other a lot," Stanley said. "There's not too much of a hierarchy, we just have a good time. We fight over what music gets played in the wrestling room - these freshmen have no taste in music. It's a fun dynamic."
The first challenge that the team will face will come Nov. 7 when they head to Grantham, Pa for the annual Messiah Invitational, followed by the Red Dragon open in Oneonta, N.Y.
