Nickerson, the fourth seed at 125 pounds, breezed through his first three bouts of the tournament, pinning Penn's Andrew Gold in the pigtails and then beating Kellan McKeon (Duke) and Marcos Orozco (Cal-Davis), each by way of fall. He then beat Dave Tomasette of Hofstra 13-8 in the quarterfinals. In the semis, he faced the top seed, Cal-Poly's Chad Mendes. Nickerson upset Mendes, 9-4, earning a spot in the finals against the second seed, Arizona State's Jeremy Mendoza. The Cornell freshman completed his run through the 125 pound bracket with a 7-4 win, taking the title.
Rinaldi got off to a fast start, winning by technical fall over Ohio State's Corey Morrison, 16-0. In the round of 16, he beat Casey Woodall of Adams State by major decision, 14-5, sending him to the quarterfinals, where he pulled out a 1-0 win over Illinois' Tyrone Byrd. Daren Burns (UNC-Greensboro) was up next for Rinaldi in the semis. The Cornell junior beat Burns 7-4, earning him a spot in the finals against second seed Kyle Cerminara of Buffalo. Cerminara edged Rinaldi 5-3 in the championship match, giving Rinaldi second-place.
At 133, Mormile kicked off the tournament with a major decision over Nick Mamalis of Western Wyoming. He rattled off two more wins for a spot in the quarterfinals where he fell to Penn's Matt Valenti, 6-2. He went 2-1 in the wrestlebacks, taking seventh place.
Manotti cruised into the quarterfinals, posting a major decision and a technical fall before beating Zach Lee (Western State) 8-3 to earn a spot in the round of eight. Manotti ground out a 3-2 win over James Strouse (Hofstra) in the quarters before falling to Michigan's Steve Luke 3-2 in the semis. He then fell to Craig Henning (Wisconsin) and beat Gene Zanetti (Penn) to take fifth place.
Anceravage had a busy tournament, wrestling eight matches, en route to third place at 165 pounds. He started by pinning Dickinson State's Stanton Schlecht in 59 seconds and then won two more matches, reaching the quarterfinals. He dropped an 18-6 major decision to the second seed, Missouri's Matt Pell and went on to the wrestlebacks. Anceravage won three consecutive matches, putting him in the third-place match against Pat Pitsch (Arizona State), where he won 8-6.
Staying in the 184 pound bracket where he saw his first action in the season-opening Body Bar Invitational, Mazzurco won his first three matches, before falling to second seed Ben Wissel (Purdue). It was a tight match that went into two overtimes, before Wissel could pull out the 3-1 win. Mazzurco then cruised past Joe Rovelli (Hofstra), 6-3 for a spot in the third-place match. He beat Harvard's Louis Caputo 7-2 for third.
The Big Red will have a three-week layoff before heading to the campus of UNC-Greensboro, to participate in the Southern Scuffle on Dec. 29-30.
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