After Columbia soundly defeated Duke Saturday, the Blue Devils bounced back later in the day to capture a close victory against Harvard in the first-ever Hall of Fame weekend hosted by the Lions.
Duke quickly recovered from its 30-7 defeat against Columbia (8-8), and found itself tied 21-21 with Harvard after a hard-fought, back-and-forth match with one bout remaining.
In the deciding 197-pound weight class, Harvard wrestler Billy Colgan began the match physically and had an early takedown against Duke sophomore Konrad Dudziak. Colgan created a gash above Dudziak's eye, forcing the Blue Devils to call timeout to administer treatment.
But once Duke wrapped up his eye, Dudziak dominated the rest of the match for a 5-1 victory in the bout to give the Blue Devils (3-11) a 24-21 win.
"With Konrad, we knew it was up in the air because they had never wrestled before," head coach Clar Anderson said. "We knew it could have gone either way."After the loss to Columbia, Duke had little time to despair before they took on Harvard (5-9-1), which boasts three nationally-ranked wrestlers at the 131-pound, 141-pound and heavyweight classes.
Even though the Blue Devils were facing such staunch competition, Anderson said he felt his team matched up better against Harvard than against Columbia, even though earlier in the day, the Crimson had defeated the Lions, 29-16.
Like its start against the Lions, Duke dropped its first match against Harvard when No. 7 Bode Ogunwole won a major decision against freshman Wade Van Sickle in the heavyweight division.
After the first three weight classes, Duke was down 10-6, but junior Philip Wightman sparked the Blue Devils' charge against No. 14 Max Meltzer. Meltzer jumped out on Wightman with an early takedown. But Wightman countered when he threw Meltzer onto his back. The match was back and forth and had a couple of tilts, but Wightman caught Meltzer off-guard on his back and pinned him at 5:48 to put the Blue Devils up 12-10.
"[The Crimson] were shocked when we pinned them at 141 because Meltzer was undefeated," Anderson said. "They expected to defeat us because they had beaten Columbia which had handled us."
The Blue Devils rode the momentum and were hanging onto a 15-13 lead until sophomore Aaron Glover suffered a technical fall against Andrew Flanagan, which put Duke down 18-15.
Once again, the Blue Devils rallied with an inspirational victory. In the 174-pound weight class, senior Levi Craig was taken down early by Wesley Walker. Anderson said when Craig fell behind early he dreaded a loss that would likely cost Duke the match against Harvard. But Craig turned the bout around when he pinned Walker to give the Blue Devils six points and a 21-18 lead.
"That was a huge victory for us," Anderson said. "We knew that their 184-pounder was really good, and if Craig had lost, it would have been a nine-point swing that would have been difficult to overcome."
After the Blue Devils lost the next-to-last match in the 184-pound weight class, they took home their third victory of the season on Dudziak's win.
The Blue Devils wrap up the regular season against Princeton Friday before they compete in the ACC Tournament March 4.
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