InterMat's All-Quarter Century Team: Lehigh

Welcome to a new recurring feature on InterMat celebrating the first 25 years of the 21st century. Every couple of days, we’ll examine a particular collegiate program and highlight its accomplishments over the past quarter century.

The first team that we examined was Minnesota, now Lehigh is up. Lehigh is a team that has perennially been in the hunt for EIWA championships, individually and as a team. During the early part of this quarter century, they even captured a couple of NCAA team trophies. Looking ahead to next year and the first year of the next quarter century, Lehigh might be in a position to contend for a team trophy again. But we’ll talk about that in due time. 

As we tried to determine Lehigh’s first team for the quarter century there were a couple of difficult decisions - more so than our feature on Minnesota. We gave Ryan Crookham the nod even though there are two-time All-Americans on the second and third team at 133 lbs. Crookham does have a significantly higher NCAA finish and NCAA seed, plus time to grow his resume. 

157 and 174 lbs made us think about the cancellation of the 2020 national tournament. Josh Humphreys and Jordan Kutler were both in a position to have another strong NCAA finish, which would have made the decisions here much easier. Of course, that didn’t happen. Maybe Jordan Kutler and his former coach, Brad Dillon, can wrestle off for the spot. 

The decision that might be the most eye-catching is the one at 184 lbs. There’s the choice between 2002 NCAA champion Rob Rohn and two-time NCAA finalist Robert Hamlin. Hamlin’s total body of work is better and he’s one of the best wrestlers in this quarter century without an NCAA title (Lehigh actually might have a couple of wrestlers on that list), while Rohn has the all-important title. We’ll let you debate this in the comments and on the message boards. 

Wrestlers considered for the three teams had to compete from 2001-25. For the wrestlers early in this timeframe, their entire collegiate body of work was considered. Only collegiate results were taken into consideration. Even if a wrestler was successful at multiple weights, they were only selected for one weight - typically it was based on the strongest possible first team.

After the three All-Century teams, there are some fun facts about Lehigh’s results over the past 25 years.

Lehigh

First Team

125 lbs - Darian Cruz: Allentown, Pennsylvania: 3x AA (5,1,7), 2017 NCAA Champ, 3x EIWA Champion, NCAA #1 seed

To see the full article purchase an InterMat Premium membership for $10 per month or $50 per year. This gives you access to the top coverage of wrestling throughout the season.
Click here to purchase your Premium membership today!