Veterans struggle as Duke wrestling drops tight matchup at Gardner Webb for second-straight defeat

Tuesday afternoon was marked by an agonizingly narrow loss by Duke at the hands of Gardner Webb. 

After being shutout 44-0 in their home opener against Appalachian State, the Blue Devils looked to bounce back in a big way in Boiling Springs, N.C. While Duke’s performance was definitely much stronger this time around, the team still fell by a score of 23-15, although the match was closer than the score alone might indicate. 

Head coach Glen Lanham pointed to a couple of misfires from his veteran wrestlers as the difference between winning and losing in such a tightly contested match. For example, sixth-year graduate student and captain Jarred Papcsy (149 lbs) lost a close encounter by a score of 2-1, while senior Logan Agin (125 lbs) lost by fall just one-minute-forty-six seconds into his match. In particular, Lanham pointed to Agin’s defeat as an unexpected one which dashed Duke’s chance of winning.  

“I mean, all we needed is that win,” Lanham said. “We were counting on that win going into the match [because] we knew it was going to be a tight one. As I tell the guys in the locker room, we’re not a team that’s gonna go and blow everybody out.”

The Blue Devils (4-7) are one of the youngest teams in the ACC, and even in the entire country. Accordingly, they frequently rely on their more experienced members to set an example for the underclassmen, many of whom are facing the toughest opposition they have seen in their athletic careers. So, when Duke’s veterans struggled, the team accordingly struggled to pull out the scrappy, narrow wins it needed. 

“We’ve got two redshirt freshmen in the lineup that have limited experience, [not to mention] we have two true freshmen in the lineup,” Lanham said. “So if you’re an upperclassmen, we gotta count on you more.”

Admittedly, not all of Duke’s veteran wrestlers underperformed Tuesday. Junior Logan Ferrero (157 lbs) picked up a big 9-2 win against the Runnin’ Bulldogs’ Tyler Brignola, while sophomore captain Gaetano Console (165 lbs) thoroughly defeated Andrew Wilson by a score of 8-2. What’s more, fellow captain Connor Barket (285 lbs) continued his dominant stretch of form by downing Gardner Webb’s Peyton McComas just over four minutes into his match. As a whole, however, Duke’s performance as a team was not at the level Lanham expects, or what was required to leave with a victory. 

“We’re coming down to the [time] when you gotta start taking the [skills] you learn and building on them,” Lanham said. But sometimes it looks like we’re stuck at square one. Our upperclassmen have to really start showing their experience and their leadership to help guide our freshmen.”