Hempstead, NY -- Four top-20 matches will be on tap Sunday evening when the 23rd-ranked Pride of Hofstra entertain the third-ranked Big Red of Cornell at the David S. Mack Sports Complex. Match time for Hofstra's regular season home finale is 5 p.m.
Hofstra comes into the match with an 8-4 overall record in dual matches and is coming off a 30-10 victory at CAA-rival Drexel last Saturday in Philadelphia. The Pride has four wrestlers ranked in the top 20 of their respective weight classes.
Leading the group is junior 133-pounder Lou Ruggirello (Walden, NY) who is ranked eighth by InterMat in this week's rankings. Ruggirello, who has won 12 of his last 14 matches, is 21-3 on the season. Senior Alton Lucas (West Babylon, NY) is ranked 10th at 174 pounds and has won the last eight matches. He is 19-4 on the season.
Junior Jonny Bonilla-Bowman (Pomona, NY) is ranked 16th this week at 157 pounds. He enters Sunday's match having won 10 consecutive matches and is 18-6 on the year. Freshman Steve Bonanno (Wantagh, NY) is ranked 20th at 125 pounds this week. He has won seven of his last nine matches and leads the team in victories with a 24-10 mark.
The Big Red, who will face Columbia University Sunday afternoon before traveling out to long Island to face the Pride, enter Sunday's matches with a 6-2 mark. Cornell has seven wrestlers ranked in the top 20 this week by InterMat with four inside the top 10. Heading the group is top-ranked and undefeated sophomore Mack Lewnes (25-0) at 165. Senior Troy Nickerson (10-0) is also undefeated this season and is ranked second at 125 pounds. He is a 2006 NCAA Championship finalist. Senior Jordan Leen (16-2), the defending national champion, is ranked fifth at 157 pounds this week.
Senior Steve Anceravage (18-3) is ranked sixth in the country at 174 pounds and earned All-American honors in 2008. At 133 pounds, sophomore Mike Grey is 14-6 on the season and ranked 12th in his weight class. Senior Zach Hammond (12-6) is ranked 12th at 285 pounds while sophomore Justin Kerber (21-8) is ranked 16th in the nation at 184 pounds.
Top 20 matches will be held at 125, 133, 157 and 174 pounds. The Big Red have captured the last four meeting since the Pride defeated them twice during the 2003-04 season. Last year in Ithaca, New York, Cornell cruised to a 28-14 victory.
Hofstra Athletics will honor its only national wrestling champion Nick Gallo at halftime of the Sunday's match. Gallo won the national title at 126-pounds in 1977. A three-time NCAA Championship qualifier, Gallo captured the 126-pound national championship and was named the NCAA Championship's Most Outstanding Wrestler in 1977. He earned All-America honors in 1975, by placing fourth and 1977 with the national title. During his four years at Hofstra, Gallo recorded a 104-14 record. He was a silver medalist in the 1980 World Cup, Pan American Trials Champion in 1979, and a member of the 1976 and 1980 Olympic Freestyle Wrestling Teams.
In 1979, Gallo returned to Hofstra as the head wrestling coach and proceeded to record a 49-25-0 record over the next four years including East Coast Conference championships in 1980, 1982 and 1983. In his first season he led the Pride to a 15-6 dual match record. A year later Hofstra placed 26th at the NCAA Championships with only two participants, Ed Pidgeon and Mike Hogan. In 1982 the Pride returned to the top of the ECC with a 12-4 record and sent three wrestlers to the national tournament. In his final year as coach Gallo led the Pride to a 13-3 mark, captured their third ECC title, sent five wrestlers to the NCAA Championships and finished 24th in the country.
Gallo, who was inducted into the Hofstra Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006, is also a member of the Suffolk Country Hall of Fame and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He is currently the president of TW Promotions, the exclusive New York metropolitan area distributor of the RESILITE wrestling mat and protective wall padding line, and supplier of ASICS products.
| " >To view the interview with Gallo, click here.
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