Herbert and Bucha headed to Sunday

Team Scores
Brackets Through Saturday

LANCASTER, Pa. - Two Franklin & Marshall wrestlers remain alive for Sunday competition at the 104th EIWA Championships. Junior Justin Herbert and sophomore Jake Bucha were the only wrestlers from the hosting Diplomats still in the draw at the end of day one.

Herbert, the third-seed at 174-pounds, picked up a pair of pins on the day, but saw his chance at championship gold fade away in the second round. He pinned his way through the first round, catching Rutgers' Mike Whalen in the waning seconds of the first period. The fall was Herbert's 13th first period pin of the year.

A late second period, 4-3 lead over Bucknell's Shane Riccio got away from the F&M junior. Riccio managed four points on the mat and the advantage time for an 8-4 win over Herbert, who suffered his third loss of the season.

Herbert kept his hopes of placing and advancing to the NCAA Championships alive in the consolation bracket, pinning Brown's Kasey McCurdy with 29 seconds left in their bout. Herbert will face seventh-seeded Shane Mallory of East Stroudsburg Sunday morning.

In his first bout of the day, second-seeded Fernando Martinez of Army bumped Bucha from the main draw on a 10-5 decision. Bucha bounced back in the consolation bracket, picking up his second career win in the EIWA championship tournament, an 8-0 win over Lehigh's Mitch Berger. Bucha will face Columbia's Brandon Kinney in the consolation quarterfinals tomorrow morning.

The two remaining wrestlers marks a turnaround of sorts for F&M. No wrestlers made it beyond Saturday at last year's championship.

F&M senior 165-pounder, Andrew Smith went 1-2 on the day, falling in the main draw to sixth-seeded Matt Pletcher of Rutgers 7-1. He picked up his first career EIWA win with a 10-5 win over ESU's Tom Pagano before bowing out at the hands of Navy's Justin Jacobs, the bracket's fifth-seed.

The defending Champions, Cornell University, lead Penn and Army in the team standings. Franklin & Marshall ranks 13th in the 14-team field, with seven-and-a-half team points to Princeton's four.