For the first time in the history of the New York Athletic Club of New York City, hosted a national television broadcast in any sport with CSTV providing the coverage. The meet will be seen nationally on Direct TV and some of its other cable outlets on Wednesday, January 12 at 10:00PM..

Cooperman-Match

Stars turn Out

In typical New York City fashion of any magnitude, the "STARS" usually turn out and there were a bunch of them in the audience last evening. They were there to support the NYAC and enjoy college wrestling. Arthur Mercante, World Famous boxing official of Ali-Frazier battles introduced the college stars who were being showcased with two NCAA runner-ups, several All-Americans and the number TWO and FIVE NCAA Division 1 ranked teams. The overflow crowd was treated to some very entertaining and exciting wrestling as every match was very competitive.

Raging Bool

Lehigh University came with its loyal fan base and had the opportunity visiting the greatest city in the World. In attendance and introduced to the crowd between the matches were Leroy Neiman, World Famous artist noted for his Olympic paintings, Jake the Raging Bull” LaMotta World Middleweight Boxing Champion, Arthur Mercante Mr. Boxing Official of the World, Bobby Hilfiger designer, Billy Baldwin screen actor, Renzo Gracie, World Combat Champion, Kerry McCoy, a two time NYAC Olympian and college wrestling stars Matt Ruppel and Mike Frick, NCAA Champions for Lehigh, Andy Fitch NCAA Champion [Yale] John Morley 5 Time National Freestyle Champion [NYAC] Vince Zuaro 5 time Olympic Official, Tom Ryan, NCAA Runner-up and Hofstra University Coach, Greg Strobel Olympic Coach, Jim Keen President of Cliff Keen Products who donated the experimental uniforms for the meet and the Baruch Wrestling Club, the first USA Wrestling Club in Manhattan as well as Larry Cantor, PSAL Commissioner of several local PSAL wrestler stars.

Set and Quint interview


Missouri team at Dinner


Jim Keen and Anchors

Special thanks to Sonny Greenhalgh, NYAC Wrestling Chairman for providing the logistical support for conducting an event with national television and an opportunity of opening the doors to the public of this very prestigious private club. Sonny thanked the guest for adhering to the Club rules and it was quite impressive to see over 800 wrestling people all dressed up for a college wrestling match. We should do more of this….

Results of the Match

New York, NY – No. 6 Lehigh continued its winning ways on Tuesday evening as the Mountain Hawks defeated No. 13 Missouri 22-17 at the historic New York Athletic Club and improved to 10-1 on the season, while sending the Tigers (8-1) to their first loss of the season.  The Mountain Hawks trailed 17-15 heading into the final two bouts, before Jon Trenge and Paul Weibel pulled out victories at 197 and heavyweight respectively to give the Brown and White yet another victory.

Andrew Rizzi, Matt Ciasulli and Cory Cooperman began the match with three consecutive wins for the Mountain Hawks, but then the Tigers came back winning five straight bouts, and looking as though they would come away with the win, however Trenge and Weibel had something to say about that.  Trenge scored a 4-0 decision over Jeff Foust giving the Mountain Hawks a slim 18-17 lead, while Weibel followed that up with a solid 12-2 major decision win against freshman Chase Wetenkamp in the heavyweight class to give Lehigh the 22-17 victory.

This is a great event for all of the fans,” explained an excited head coach Greg Strobel on the post-match show.  “We had tremendous support out there and Weibel really came up big for us down the stretch.  It was an exciting match and I think we came out and wrestled well today."