Kent State wrestling travelled to the Wolstein Center to take on the Cleveland State Vikings in a round robin match on Saturday afternoon.  The teams played four rounds in which starters and backups from both squads got time on the mat.  

Junior Koda Komara was a standout for the Flashes, completing his perfect day with a win by technical fall, 16-1, getting a cradle on CSU Sophomore Marcus Robinson.  Senior Andrew McNally also continued his solid season, taking care of Vikings’ redshirt freshman Anthony Rice in round two in dominating fashion, 8-0.  

“As a team I thought we out-wrestled them,” coach Jim Andrassy said.  “We had four pins, they didn’t have any.  Our backups were a lot better than their backups, which was the difference in total matches.”  

Redshirt Sophomore Tyler Bates split his two matches on the day at 184, dropping a tough second match 3-2.  Junior Colin McCracken won both of his matches along with Senior Jake Ferri at 194 and 125, respectively.  However, Andrassy said he felt his squad left opportunities on the mat, losing two overtime matches.  

“If you go six or seven minutes in and it’s a tie score and then you lose in overtime, it’s because you’re not in good enough shape, or you just aren’t fighting hard enough,” he said.  “It’s frustrating because in both of those cases I thought we were better than the guys going into the match.” 

Sophomores Brady Chrisman and James Limongi both got time on Saturday, with Chrisman coming up short in both of his matches at 165, while Limongi won one of his two matches by a score of 8-0 over CSU’s Caleb Cass. 

“Our young guys need to pick it up; with some of our freshmen it’s their first year and they’re learning but they need to learn faster,” Coach Andrassy said.  “We talk about it all the time in the room, we talk about it at practice, now they have to go out and fix those mistakes.” 

The Flashes will have an opportunity to do that on Wednesday night, when they return home to take on Gannon and Mercyhurst for a dual meet at 5 p.m. at the Kent State Field House. 

Mason is a sports reporter. Contact him at [email protected].