Wrestling Recruits
- Thread starter gary2
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I am assuming Bono is the younger brother of our graduated 197 pounder. I don't know anything about the rest of them, but it appears at least the staff tried to recruit to fill our weaknesses this year: 125, where Bentley is 0-3, 141, 149, 174, where Dietrich is 1-2, and 184, where Carr is 0-3.
The problem is that we have so many weak weight classes. I know Dietrich is only a freshman, but the good freshmen tend to make an instant impact in college.
Pitt beat Edinboro today when Solomon pinned their Hwt in the 1st period, but the match exposed all of those weaknesses.
Whether Cody becomes eligible or not, he likely has wrestled his final match. He will not beat out Campbell at 165. Of Peters' one highly touted recruiting class, Bright no longer is in school, Cody and Mikey have been huge disappointments and Solomon is the only success. If you add Rizzo, who transferred in from Temple, it has to go down as the most disappointing recruiting class in Pitt history.
The problem is that we have so many weak weight classes. I know Dietrich is only a freshman, but the good freshmen tend to make an instant impact in college.
Pitt beat Edinboro today when Solomon pinned their Hwt in the 1st period, but the match exposed all of those weaknesses.
Whether Cody becomes eligible or not, he likely has wrestled his final match. He will not beat out Campbell at 165. Of Peters' one highly touted recruiting class, Bright no longer is in school, Cody and Mikey have been huge disappointments and Solomon is the only success. If you add Rizzo, who transferred in from Temple, it has to go down as the most disappointing recruiting class in Pitt history.
I found information on some of the recruits on International:
Bonaccorsi is ranked #3 nationally at 180. He is from Belle Vernon. He is the only ranked WPIAL wrestler Peters managed to recruit.
Cronin is ranked #17 at 138. He is from Upper Darby.
Fenstermacher is ranked #20 nationally at 126. He is from Northampton. Both Cronin and Fenstermacher are projected at 141/149 in college. (The rankings are in the weight class. Bono is the only one ranked in the top 100 nationally.)
O'Brien is from Wilson West Lawn and is projected at 165/174. I am guessing that he is a walk-on.
Cherry is from Central Dauphin in Harrisburg. He isn't ranked. I don't know if he is a walk-on.
Dunlop and Bulsak both are WPIAL guys. Neither is ranked. Dunlop is projected at 125 and Bulsak at 149.
This was a relatively down year for the WPIAL. The top seniors are Spencer Lee, going to Iowa, Cameron Coy, going to UVA, and Bono. Certainly, the senior class is not nearly as strong as 2015 or 2016.
Bonaccorsi is ranked #3 nationally at 180. He is from Belle Vernon. He is the only ranked WPIAL wrestler Peters managed to recruit.
Cronin is ranked #17 at 138. He is from Upper Darby.
Fenstermacher is ranked #20 nationally at 126. He is from Northampton. Both Cronin and Fenstermacher are projected at 141/149 in college. (The rankings are in the weight class. Bono is the only one ranked in the top 100 nationally.)
O'Brien is from Wilson West Lawn and is projected at 165/174. I am guessing that he is a walk-on.
Cherry is from Central Dauphin in Harrisburg. He isn't ranked. I don't know if he is a walk-on.
Dunlop and Bulsak both are WPIAL guys. Neither is ranked. Dunlop is projected at 125 and Bulsak at 149.
This was a relatively down year for the WPIAL. The top seniors are Spencer Lee, going to Iowa, Cameron Coy, going to UVA, and Bono. Certainly, the senior class is not nearly as strong as 2015 or 2016.
You are forgetting a few other wrestlers. Verkleeren and Woodley are nationally ranked as well asManley from Altoona.
If you mean are there guys who aren't starting but should be, that's why they have wrestle-offs. I assume the guys who are wrestling are the best we have.
Am I happy with the talent level? Hell no. Forys and Solomon are solid but IMO not capable of placing at nationals. Wentzel is a frosh and I have never seen him wrestle, but he is off to a nice start, although he hasn't wrestled a ranked wrestler. Campbell dropped down a weight class and appears to be thriving. But, he ran out of gas in the third period, which had been a problem at Pitt for a decade. Our wrestlers seem to run out of gas at the end of matches and at the end of the season. It has to be a conditioning issue and it has been an issue since Stottlemyre was the coach.
Dietrich is an unknown quantity. He was wrestling at prep school against a lot of guys who were a year or more younger. The rest of the starting lineup wouldn't be backups at PSU or either
OSU (the one in Ohio or the one in Oklahoma). I am serious about that: Conaway ( or another PSU starter) turned down a scholarship at Pitt to walk-on at PSU.
Since the first year, Peters has not recruited well and the guys he has recruited have not improved under his coaching. Cody was a 3 time state champion; Mikey was a 2 or 3 time state champion; Zanetta was a two time runner up. I don't think any of them has gotten much better. The best wrestlers in the WPIAL are going elsewhere. I can understand Iowa or PSU. But he is losing recruits to UVA, NC State and Arizona State.
His top recruit this year was Wentzel. But Wentzel was only the third highest ranked wrestler at 157 signed by an ACC school. NC State, VT and UVA are kicking our butt in recruiting.
I have never been a fan of his. But I think he has had 4 years to prove me wrong and he hasn't.
I know there are other ranked WPIAL wrestlers, but I only mentioned those in the top 5 since in the last two years, the WPIAL had 7 and 5 wrestlers in the top 5 in their weight classes. And I think Teasdale is the only underclassman ranked in the top 5.
I can see where the Wiercioch situation may have scrambled their plans a bit but I was hoping to see people other than Carr and Bruce in the lineup.
What is up with Bentley? Should have kept the kid behind Forys that left.
As a brief update on the current squad, we should give Bruce a little bit of credit for his win against Edinboro. Bruce came to Pitt as a walk on and struggled last year. He is improving for sure. The kid he beat from Edinboro to win the match for us was a PA state champion from Seagartown, an Ironman Champion and a PowerAde Champion. That's some pretty nice pedigree to beat when your team needs the win. Bentley lost to 3 ranked wrestlers. I promise he would like to have these matches back and thinks he should have done better, but these were quality kids. He will win his fare share this year for us. Eli Seiple who was very highly recruited broke his arm last year and required repeat surgery again this fall. We can only hope he can come back and compete again. Forys, Solomon, and Teshan have been good of course. And of note Teshan beat 2 ranked kids out of his three matches, both ranked ahead of him. He is doing very well. The comments above about falling apart last year at the end of the season are a bit of a stretch. He had a torn ligament in his thumb for the last month of the season that kept him from gripping anything. He wrestled through it and had surgery right after the season. That clearly impaired him if you watched him wrestle in February and March. Jake is a true freshman who will do very well for us. He, like all freshman will undoubtedly have some tough nights, but he will be good for years to come. We have a big match against Lehigh Friday night so if you can make it to Fitgerald, that would be great. Lehigh is ranked # 11 in the USA today poll. Will be a very good challenge.
Good kid but was gonna always be behind LJ and then likely behind a 125 who is about to commit. Should happen and be public very soon.
Joey Thomas. South Carroll HS in Maryland. 2 time Maryland (1A/2A) state champ and finished 3rd as a Freshman.
That him. Good wrestler. Small, likely be able to make 125 for years. Happy to get him.
Wow, that's a shame. He used to come into the gym I work out at in Somerset when he was at North Star. Good kid. Has had a rough ride. Time to concentrate on school and get that degree.
How do you feel about next season's recruiting class at this point?
How do you feel about today's results?
Today was interesting. Mikey and LJ needed to win some matches to get some confidence back. Both are good but were in a rutt. They did. Solomon being hurt is very tough for us. Forys is great right now. Teshan was very good but Joseph got him in the finals. They could meet again at NCAA. Jake getting hurt today was tough. He would have finished 3rd but Taleb finishing 3rd was great. We have some holes but today was pretty good at several weights. As for next year, we are in very deep on 4 big recruits. We won't get them all and honestly can't get them all due to scholarship limits. However, if we get 2 of them they could come in and start right away and help us. If we could get and afford 3 it would be a miracle. Let's hope for 2 and mix in a few solid kids and it will be a step to getting better for sure. I'm very excited for next years recruiting class. However, just hoping we can get healty now and be ready to compete in ACC duals.
Remember when we joined the ACC and people were wondering if we would wrestle in it because it was so weak?
Well, I would say that barring major injuries to our fellow ACC programs, we have zero chance of finishing in the top 3 in this year's tourney. VT is a top 5 national program right now. NC State will battle them for the title, and UNC likely will finish third. We will battle with UVA for fourth, and the most quickly improving team in the conference probably is Duke.
Our recruiting class this year was the worst in the conference. Our three highest-ranked recruits each was ranked lower than at least 2 other newcomers at their weight classes. Following in Rande's footsteps, Peters hasn't released a list of the 2017 recruits who have signed LOIs, but from posts here we know pretty much who they are, and it is, at best, a middling class.
Anyone who believes things are going to get better under Peters is dreaming.
The one-sided loss against Lehigh illustrates what is going to happen when we face any really good team. Against PSU, which is not as strong this year as it has been in the past 5, we will be lucky to win more than 2 matches, at 133 and possibly at 165. We will likely lose a lot of matches that will end in major decisions, technical falls or pins.
Well, I would say that barring major injuries to our fellow ACC programs, we have zero chance of finishing in the top 3 in this year's tourney. VT is a top 5 national program right now. NC State will battle them for the title, and UNC likely will finish third. We will battle with UVA for fourth, and the most quickly improving team in the conference probably is Duke.
Our recruiting class this year was the worst in the conference. Our three highest-ranked recruits each was ranked lower than at least 2 other newcomers at their weight classes. Following in Rande's footsteps, Peters hasn't released a list of the 2017 recruits who have signed LOIs, but from posts here we know pretty much who they are, and it is, at best, a middling class.
Anyone who believes things are going to get better under Peters is dreaming.
The one-sided loss against Lehigh illustrates what is going to happen when we face any really good team. Against PSU, which is not as strong this year as it has been in the past 5, we will be lucky to win more than 2 matches, at 133 and possibly at 165. We will likely lose a lot of matches that will end in major decisions, technical falls or pins.
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mike412you are 100%correct. it pitt would have hired a young big name coach he would bring in solid talent. but onc again I honestly feel the athletic dept. could care less abought the wrestling program. I have no proof its just what I believe.
I think Barnes wanted to give Peters time. That was understandable. Barnes really knows nothing about wrestling. He was AD at a school which didn't have a program.
Wrestling fans are very dedicated. Unfortunately, they are not numerous. I don't know whether Barnes will ever care about it.
Wrestling fans are very dedicated. Unfortunately, they are not numerous. I don't know whether Barnes will ever care about it.
Because he moved up a weight class from last year. Because it's exceptionally hard to win multiple state titles in PA.
Getting a big win over J. Embree earlier this year helped, also.
Id love any coach to have a shot that runs coach Pecora's system (I wrestled for him for a year and I swear by what he taught me, and wrestled with both John and Jody Strittmatter), but I dont think Jody has the personality to really recruit well either. Unless he has changed since I knew him, Jody was always a very quiet, nice, and polite guy, but definitely an introvert. A lead by example type.
John, on the other hand, was like a mini-Pecora. Super nice, always smiling, and willing to help any who needed it, even the lowest walk ons. I can see him making a fantastic coach and recruiter. Anybody know what John is up to these days? Is he coaching?
So he has won at least one state championship in his HS career, and hads made a name for himself by beating other good wrestlers in the summer tournaments?
