CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA – Cortland senior Martino Sottile (Brentwood) and junior Aljamain Sterling (Uniondale) are each guaranteed All-America honors after their performances on the opening day of competition at the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships.
Sottile, at 197 pounds, and Sterling, at 133 pounds, won their opening matches before losing in the quarterfinals. They then won their first match in the consolation bracket to clinch a top-eight finish and All-America recognition. Each wrestler can finish as high as third place when the competition resumes Saturday.
Senior heavyweight Joe Murphy (St. James/Smithtown) and senior 174-pounder Mike Ciaburri (Palmyra/Palmyra-Macedon) were eliminated from the tournament during the opening day. Murphy finished with a 1-2 record and finished the year with a 33-7 mark. He was 103-40 during his Red Dragon career. Ciaburri went 0-2 at the tournament. He finished 25-10 on the season and 86-48 for his collegiate career.
Cortland is in 20th place out of 59 schools after the first day of competition with 11.5 points. Augsburg College (Minn.) leads with 69 points, followed by Wisconsin-La Crosse with 56 points and defending champion Wartburg (Iowa) with 53.5 points. Either Wartburg or Augsburg has won every national title since 1995.
Sottile, the eighth seed at 197 pounds, opened with a 3-2 victory over Connor McNamara of Ursinus College. He then lost 10-2 to top-seeded and undefeated Jared Massey of Augsburg before winning 3-2 versus Brian Broll of Buena Vista University. Sottile, now 23-9, will face Martin Porter of Delaware Valley College in his first match Saturday.
Sterling, unseeded at 133 pounds, pulled off one of the tournament’s biggest upsets with his opening-round 1-0 win over second-seeded Nathan Fitzenreider of North Central College. Sterling was edged by Nichalos Nothern of Cornell College (Iowa), 3-2, in the quarterfinals, but secured his All-America honors with a pin in 2:48 over eighth-seeded Joseph Grippi of Springfield. Sterling brings a 25-7 record into his first match Saturday versus Corey Brown of Thiel College.
Murphy, unseeded at heavyweight, lost to fifth-seeded John Helgerson of Wartburg by pin in 2:37 to open the tournament. Murphy had also lost to Helgerson in his first match of the 2009 nationals. Murphy bounced back to blank Western New England’s Jamison Sacco, 2-0, but was eliminated with a 4-0 loss to sixth-seeded Adam Sutter of Lakeland College.
Ciaburri, the seventh seed at 174 pounds, was pinned by Seth Rehn of Coe College in 1:54 and dropped a 7-2 decision to Wartburg’s Dylan Azinger in the consolation bracket.
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