ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Seven members of the Wesleyan wrestling team finished as placers at the RIT Invitational, leading the Cardinals to a fifth place finish out of 14 teams at the event.
Andrew Maiorini '25 highlighted the day for Wesleyan, finishing as the runner-up in the 165lb weight class while
Ike Guttentag '26,
CJ Shea '25,
Aris Dashiell '25,
Dario Molina '24,
Max Martinez '25, and
Chris Hong '27 also placed in their respective flights.
Maiorini put on a show in the 165lb weight class, advancing to the final of the main flight. Competing as the four-seed, Maiorini started with a pair of tech fall wins before pulling out a 1-0 decision win over five-seed Travis Green of Penn. College. In the semifinal round, Maiorini took down top-seed Mitchell Arch of Case Western by a 9-5 decision. Finally, in the title match, Maiorini's run came to an end with an 8-2 loss to Henry Forte of Williams. The runner-up finish stood as the deepest run in any weight class for the Cardinals on the day.
Guttentag made a deep run as an unseeded wrestler in the 149lb weight class. He opened with a 16-9 decision victory over three-seed TJ Martin of Penn. College. Guttentag followed with a pinfall win at 2:15 and 12-4 major decision victory over six-seed Nikolas Fegert of Pitt-Bradford. Competing in the semifinal round of the main flight, Guttentag's run came to an end with a 10-2 major decision defeat to two-seed Peyton Hearn of PSU Behrend. Competing in the consolation flight, Guttentag finished strong with a 11-5 win over Martin and then took down the top-seed Calvin Cai of Case Western with a sudden victory 8-5 triumph to earn third place in the weight class.
Shea made it two third place finishers for the Cardinals on the day as the junior made a deep run in the championship flight of the 157lb bracket before winning both of his matches in the consolation flight to take third place. Competing as the three-seed, Shea earned back-to-back wins by pinfall to start the bracket. He then landed a 15-0 tech fall win, advancing to the semifinals, before dropping a 5-4 decision to two-seed Patrick McGraw. Rebounding nicely with a 18-2 tech fall win in the consolation flight, the third place match against Calvin Napoletano went Shea's way in a 7-0 triumph.
Dashiell placed fourth in the 184lb weight class, winning by tech fall and a 10-4 decision in the championship flight before suffering a 7-4 loss to three-seed Dante Gutbrod of Williams. In the consolation bracket, Dashiell defeated five-seed Colton Geitler of Pitt-Bradford by a 7-3 decision before losing to four-seed Marco Bragado of Trinity in the third place match.
Molina secured a fifth-place finish in the 165lb bracket, advancing to the quarterfinal round of the main flight with consecutive tech fall wins to open the competition. Then in the consolation flight, Molina scored a 15-4 major decision win followed by a 12-6 decision victory over Landen Smith. In the fifth place match, Liam Strouse took a medical forfeit, giving Molina the fifth place result.
The 141lb weight class featured several Cardinals who went on deep runs. Martinez scored three wins, landing a spot in the semifinals of the main flight. Martinez landed three straight wins by pinfall before falling to Art Martinez of Case Western by tech fall.
Shailen Savur '25 earned a pair of pinfall wins, defeating both is openings in under a minute, before having to bow out in the quarterfinals due to injury just 11 seconds into the match against Bryson Vaughn.
Hayden Myers '27 made waves, upsetting the top-seed Noah Hunt of Penn. College by a 17-0 tech fall win. He went on to win by pinfall in 4:25 over Andrew Pratt of Trinity in round two before conceding to Americo Milani of John Carroll in the quarterfinals due to injury.
Also competing in the 149lb bracket,
Jack Wemmlinger '24 won a pair of matches in the main flight while
Jack DeVoe '26 won his opening round match.
Hong won a pair of matches in the 125lb bracket, advancing to the semifinal round of the championship flight. He defeated Michael Sandacz of Penn. College by pinfall at 2:55 and followed with a 9-6 decision victory over Sebastian Chiesa of Penn State Behrend. Hong's run came to an end in the semifinals with an 8-1 decision loss to the two-seed Alexander Schaeublin of Trinity.
In the 174lb bracket,
Roman Martinez '27 won by decision and sudden victory, making the quarterfinals of the main draw.
Marcus Brown '25 responded in a big way following an opening round defeat, rattling off three straight wins by pinfall in the consolation flight.
Noah Lim '27 won his opening round match in the 133lb flight, defeating Hunter Crouse of Thiel by pinfall at 4:23. Lim later earned a 16-3 major decision win in the consolation flight over Alexander Wisdom of PSU Behrend.
William Maffei '27 picked up a win by pinfall in the 197lb consolation flight.
Kolton Gagnon '25 landed two wins in the consolation flight of the 285lb bracket, including a win by pinfall and a sudden victory 5-2 triumph.
The Cardinals are back in action after the new year as Wesleyan opens the dual match portion of the season with a tri-meet at home on Saturday, January 6. Wesleyan begins with Bridgewater State at Noon before hosting WPI at 1:30 PM in the Bacon Field House.
