Duke wins 2 of 3 in dual meets

It was a weekend of ups and downs for the Blue Devils.

Duke split up its grapplers into starters, who faced off at three dual meets, and backups and redshirts, who wrestled at the Pembroke Open. The team had a tournament winner at Pembroke but at the same time lost a starter to an injury in one of the dual meets.

Head coach Clar Anderson led his team into dual meets Saturday against Newberry, Gardner-Webb and Wagner expecting to win, even though all three opponents have Divison II or Junior College All-Americans on their rosters. But early on, things didn't go exactly as planned.

"The design for these [dual meets] was to get experience," Anderson said. "We fully expected to win all three matches."

In the first meet against Newberry, sophomore Mike Toomey, wrestling in the heavyweight class, hurt his shoulder in the middle of his match. Inhibited by the injury, Toomey was pinned and it cost Duke the first meet.

Duke ended up forfeiting the heavyweight class for the next two meets, but it did not cause as much trouble as Anderson originally thought it might, as the Blue Devils managed to come away with wins in both.

"We rebounded-we beat Wagner soundly, we beat Gardner-Webb soundly," Anderson said. "It was frustrating and disappointing that we lost to Newberry because of injury."

Despite the setbacks, there was a bright side to Duke's weekend. Konrad Dudziak, a sophomore who is redshirting to train in hopes of making the Polish national team in time for the 2008 Olympics, took first place at the Pembroke Open. Anderson said he was impressed by Dudziak's tournament victory, which included a win over a nationally-ranked wrestler from UNC-Greensboro.