Sunday's match against the Big Ten Badgers will mark the home debut of the Pride's new head wrestling Rob Anspach. The Pine Grove, Pennsylvania native and Hofstra alumnus has served as an assistant coach on Tom Ryan's Pride staff for four seasons and Tom Shifflet's staff for five years. He took over after the NCAA Championships last March following Shifflet's resignation to enter private business.
The Pride, who are ranked 24th by Division I College Wrestling, 30th by The Wrestling Report and are receiving votes in the National Wrestling Coaches Association Division I Top 25 Poll this week, return 17 wrestlers including seven starters from last year's 14-4-1 squad. Hofstra captured the CAA championship and placed 26th, with two All-Americans, at the NCAA Championships last March.
The Pride opened the season last Sunday at the Binghamton Open. Hofstra put 16 grapplers on the mat in Binghamton and six finished as place-winners including senior All-American P.J. Gillespie. The Long Beach, New York product captured the 165-pound title in upstate New York and is 5-0 on the season and ranked fifth by every ranking organization this week.
Senior Ben Clymer (Germansville, PA) at 184 pounds and junior Steve Bonanno (Wantagh, NY) at 125 pounds placed second while junior Paul Snyder (Greensburg, PA) finished third at 285. Sophomores Jamie Franco (Monroe, NY) at 133 and Matt Loew (Wantagh, NY) at 197 each placed sixth. Bonanno is ranked 14th in the country while Clymer is ranked 20th.
Hofstra will be making one change to the expected starting line-up for the Wisconsin match as redshirt junior Justin Accordino (Wilkes-Barre, PA) will be dropping back to 149 pounds to replace senior Vince Varela (Rio Rancho, NM), who suffered a leg injury prior to the Binghamton competition.
Wisconsin enters the week with a 3-0 record after sweeping through their Badger Duals last Sunday. Wisconsin posted victories over Loras (38-3), UW-Whitewater (39-3) and the number one team in Division III Wartburg (17-16). Seven Badger wrestlers went undefeated at six different weight classes throughout the three dual matches.
The Badgers, who return 10 letter-winners and have added nine newcomers to its squad in 2011, are led by five starters from last year's squad, including NCAA qualifiers Cole Schmitt at 149 pounds and Ben Jordan at 165 pounds. Schmitt is ranked 13th and Jordan is ranked 16th by InterMat this week. Wisconsin will be without three of its 2011 All-America recipients, Tyler Graff (133 lbs.), Andrew Howe (165 lbs.) and Travis Rutt (184 lbs.), due to Olympic redshirt seasons. Head coach Barry Davis returns for his 18th season at the helm of the Wisconsin wrestling program.
The Badgers will wrestle Princeton and Rider in Princeton, New Jersey on Friday, November 18 before coming to Long Island on Sunday.
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