The Wolfpack wrestling team entered Wednesday night’s ACC conference opener against Duke well aware of the type of performance that it would need in order to come away with a victory in a match where they were forfeiting at the 197-pound weight class and using a backup from a lighter weight class to fill in for the usually reliable Darrius Little. Little, a sophomore 133 pounder, failed to make weight and forced State to insert reserve junior 125-pounder Dan Brumfield into his spot. Senior 141-pounder Joe Caramanica talked about the difficulty of wrestling without someone of Little’s caliber.
“We knew what we had to do individually, [but] it’s hard on the team, hard on everybody, when one person’s missing weight, especially when it’s a key guy like Darrius,” Caramanica said.
Despite the loss of Little, the Wolfpack came seconds away from victory in a painfully close 26-22 loss. The match started off with a pin by redshirt freshman 125-pounder Mike Moreno, who notched the first ACC victory of his career.
His pin was one of four consecutive that started the match, three of which were won by the Pack. Jack Anderson earned the lone pin for the Blue Devils, taking down Dan Brumfield, who was wrestling one weight class up. Junior 149-pounder Darrion Caldwell, who is ranked No. 3 nationally, was responsible for one of those pins, recording his 38th career first period pin and 11th this season. The other pin was accounted for by senior 141-pounder Joe Caramanica, who held his opponent scoreless for the fourth consecutive match.
After a 10-1 major decision by redshirt senior 157-pounder Kody Hamrah, the team led Duke by a score of 22-6. Coach Carter Jordan talked after the match about the consistently dominant efforts the team has come to expect from veteran leaders Caldwell, Caramanica and Hamrah.
“That’s kind of murderer’s row for us. They all wrestled really well. They all knew that they needed to get extra points for us to have a chance,” Jordan said. “They gave yeoman’s efforts.”
The rest of the match went in Duke’s favor, as State gave up the last 20 points of the contest to the strength of Duke’s lineup and to the crucial forfeit at the 197-pound weight class. While the outcome down the stretch certainly left something to be desired, Coach Jordan seemed thrilled with everyone’s efforts, both in the earlier and later stages of the match. He was particularly pleased with the performances by freshman 174-pounder Jake Burge, who fell just short in overtime, and sophomore heavyweight Bobby Isola, who lost a heartbreaker in the evening’s final match by a score of 3-2 to Duke’s Konrad Dudziak, the No. 5 heavyweight in the nation.
“We were extremely pleased with the effort that we gave. It was a terrific effort by our guys,” Jordan said. “Everybody wrestled real well, even the guys who lost.”
Despite the victories by Caldwell, Caramanica, Moreno and Hamrah, the forfeit at 197 and Little’s failure to make weight eventually proved to be insurmountable. Despite the disappointment of the loss, coach Jordan and his team left Reynolds Coliseum proud of how hard they fought in the face of tremendous adversity.
“We were extremely pleased with the effort that we gave. It was a terrific effort by our guys,” Jordan said. “Unfortunately Darrius Little did not make weight and that was the match, that was a 12-point swing.”
