Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech’s wrestling team held onto a big early lead in front of a record-breaking crowd Saturday night, beating defending ACC champion and rival Virginia, 20-12.

“Thanks to all the Hokies,” said Kevin Dresser, head coach. “Keep coming, we’ve got one more weekend. Great crowd. I’m sure it’s the biggest crowd we’ve had in the five years of this regime. I think we probably beat (the attendance record) by close to 1,000.”

The official count was 3,378 in attendance. It was short of the 5,000 Tech wanted to pull, but still impressive for a team that usually doesn’t draw half of what it did Saturday night.

The No. 7 Hokies (16-4, 3-0 ACC) jumped out to an early 13-0 lead by taking the first four matches, and would end up winning six of the first seven. Both 10th-ranked Devin Carter in the 133-pound weight class and 15th-ranked Pete Yates in the 165 earned major decisions and bonus points for Tech.

David Marone (heavyweight), Jarrod Garnett (125), Zach Neibert (141) and Jesse Dong (157) also posted victories for the Hokies, helping them build a 20-3 lead. Marone and Garnett led off the night with come-from-behind wins.

“What a great way to start,” Dresser said. “We didn’t start either one of those matches the way we wanted to, but we gutted it out. We talked about toughness before the match and heavyweight and 125 really showed some toughness.”Garnett’s victory proved to be both the most impressive and the most exciting match of the night. In the first two minutes of the first round, he had fallen behind 8-0 to UVa’s Matt Snyder.

“There was still a lot of wrestling left,” Garnett said. “Coach always tells us throughout the week that no matter what happens, you’re still in the match. There’s still a lot of wrestling left. You’re always in it.”

His reversal just before the end of the first round earned him two points and cut the deficit to six.

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A version of this article appeared in the Feb 8 issue of the Collegiate Times.