Wrestling begins season strong

Over the past three seasons, the Duke wrestling team has had a plethora of talent at the middle weights. Led by NCAA qualifiers and recent graduates Michael Mitchell and Tom Cass, the Blue Devils always saw those weights as the strength of their lineup. However, graduation weakened a Duke team that won their first ACC dual meet in six seasons last year, as they look to reload and fill the void left by Cass, Mitchell and three-time national qualifier Tommy Hoang.

The Blue Devils' youth movement began Saturday in Virginia as Duke's freshmen wrestlers traveled to Lexington for the VMI Keydet Invitational. But if this weekend's performance was an indication of future strength in the Blue Devil lineup, opponents will have to match up a little differently against Duke in the future.

Rather than having their strength in the middle weighs, the Blue Devils featured three wrestlers in the finals in the first three weight classes. Led by champion Bryan Gibson at 133 pounds, Duke had second-place finishers Christian Smith (125) and Daniel Shvartsman (141), and a fourth from Patrick Keenum at 197. Gibson scored a 4-2 decision in the finals, following a 30-second pin in the quarterfinal round. Smith will look to start at 125 pounds for the rest of the season in the conference's toughest weight class.

Duke showed depth at 149 pounds where Michael Creagan won his first two matches, one by fall, to advance to the semifinals before dropping a 2-1 decision to American University's Tom Kniezewski. Both Creagan and teammate Antwone Floyd dropped bouts in the consolation semifinals of the weight class to prevent them from placing in the top four.