Believe it.
Despite close calls in the past few years, the Blue Devils had been the doormat of the ACC for the last six seasons. But when junior 174-pounder Tim Marcantonio held off Maryland's Pat Cissne's late rally in the meet's final bout for a 9-7 win, Duke made waves in the conference standings. The Blue Devils (8-7, 1-1 in the ACC) beat Maryland (5-6, 0-3) 19-16 and sent the Terps spiraling to their third consecutive conference loss and gave six-year head coach Clar Anderson his first ACC dual meet victory since his second season as an assistant.
"We thought we were going to beat them last year," Anderson said of his team's 20-16 loss to the Terrapins a year ago. "This year it was one of our goals and our guys came out and worked hard to get that."
Tied at 16 going into the final bout, the meet hinged on the 174 pound match. Marcantonio tried to stay loose but was noticeably tight and reserved on the mat despite having a 7-3 lead going into the meet's final two minutes.
"The pressure was really bad," Marcantonio said. "I figured if I came out hard [the butterflies] would just go away. My roommate told me yesterday that it was going to come down to my match, I just had no idea that we would start [the meet] at 184."
Marcantonio came out strong against Cissne, however, taking the redshirt sophomore down three times in the first period. With Cissne pressuring, Marcantonio wrestled defensively for the rest of the match, getting warned for stalling in the second period, but held on for the victory.
The dual meet was tight from start to finish with the team score tied three different times. Maryland took an early 10-0 lead with wins at the first three weight classes, but Duke won the next three to take a 13-10 advantage.
Maryland started off with their best wrestler, No. 14 184 pound Jake Stork, who had won 20 consecutive matches, against Duke's Tom Cass, a returning NCAA qualifier in a likely preview of the conference finals next month. Cass hit an early takedown and gave up an escape almost as quickly for a 2-1 advantage that would last for the duration of the period. Cass chose bottom to start the second and escaped, but Stork took him down again and rode him out for the final 1:30 of the period. Tied in the third, Stork, who has a nation best 21 pins this season, opened up, with a takedown and three-point near fall for the final 10-4 score.
Maryland scored a major decision at 197-pounds and a decision at heavyweight before Tommy Hoang began to bring the Blue Devils back at 125. Hoang squared off against the Terps' Matt Pandullo, who defeated Hoang in their only other meeting three years ago. With a series of flurries to begin the match, both wrestlers exposing their backs at some point before either had control, Hoang eventually settled down and pinned Pandullo at 2:13 to close the steam score to within four points.
Andy Soliman followed at 133-pounds with a major decision, but should have scored a pin. Soliman held Maryland's Mike Lupa flat on the mat for several seconds directly in front of the scorers' table, but the referee missed the call and only awarded back points instead of the fall. As a result, Duke was tied with the Terps instead of leading in the team score.
In a critical match for the Blue Devils, redshirt sophomore Adam Benitez beat freshman John-Henry Zarycki in overtime to give Duke its first lead of the afternoon. Down 5-4 after the first period, Benitez escaped at the beginning of the second and scored a takedown and backpoints at the buzzer for a 9-5 lead, as Duke assistant coach Corey Bell was screaming and whipping the mat with a towel in excitement. Zaryicki, however, tied the score in the third, but Benitez hit a quick single-leg in overtime for a huge win.
Maryland took back the lead after winning the next two bouts by decision, but Duke's Michael Mitchell tied the score once again at 16 with a 6-0 victory over the Terps' Sean Collins. The tie score set the stage for Marcantonio's win in the final bout.
"This was a huge win for our team. We haven't won an ACC match in six years so I'm just happy for my teammates, they worked hard," Mitchell said. "Everybody out there wrestled their hardest."
The team was not surprised by the win since it was one of the goals from the beginning of the season, but no one had recognized the ACC winless streak for the Blue Devils.
"We thought we should've [beaten Maryland] the past few years. But we were all surprised by the long-standing streak of wins in the ACC," Hoang said. "When we heard that it felt that much better to finally break that as a senior."
The afternoon concluded with a big 210-18 win by Duke over Duquesne which was seemingly insignificant in comparison. Mitchell, however, won a huge match personally as he never gave up a takedown and defeated the Dukes' Bill Boeh 4-3. Boeh defeated Mitchell last year at the NCAA Championships and knocked Mitchell out of the tournament.
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