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The Cornell wrestling team closes out competition for the 2014 calendar year and head coach Rob Koll will look for his 250th career coaching win when the Big Red visits the "World's Most Famous Arena" as part of the Grapple at the Garden on Sunday, Dec. 21. The Big Red will compete in dual meets against No. 12 Edinboro at 10 a.m., then Northern Iowa at noon at Madison Square Garden. The duals can be viewed live on FloWrestling.org or you can listen to the broadcast on ESPN 1160 AM in Ithaca with Jeremy Menard on the call.

Koll enters Sunday with 248 career victories with the Big Red and would become the ninth coach to reach 250 wins in a sport all-time on the Big Red sidelines. He already is the school's winningest coach at 248-80-5.

Cornell is off to a 4-0 dual meet record that includes wins over nationally ranked Oklahoma and North Carolina State, and continues to point toward the spring while getting its championship lineup ready. With at least two and possibly three starters out of the lineup for much of the fall, the Big Red has continued to stay competitive with the very top tier of teams in the nation. The Big Red won its third consecutive New York State title, went a perfect 3-0 at the Journeymen/ASICS Northeast Duals and placed fifth at the Las Vegas Invitational without the services of four starters. Seven starters remain ranked among the nation's top 20 wrestlers at their respective weight classes.

Junior Nahshon Garrett, the defending national runner-up at 125 pounds, is ranked first or second in every national poll and is unbeaten so far this season at 9-0 with four wins over nationally ranked wrestlers, three covering bonus points. Senior Chris Villalonga, who like Garrett is unbeaten and coming off an individual title at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, is 14-0 this season at 149 pounds and is ranked sixth nationally.

Just two weeks ago, sophomore Gabe Dean was ranked No. 1 in the country at 184 pounds and remains among a handful of national title contenders at the weight despite two losses in Vegas. Refocused, Dean joins a pair of classmates in Brian Realbuto (157) and Dylan Palacio (165) among the Big Red's five top 10 ranked wrestlers. Both Realbuto, who is recovering from an injury suffered at last season's NCAA tournament, and Palacio, who spent the fall with the Big Red men's soccer team, will be looking to make their first appearance of the year in the coming weeks.

This will be Cornell's third appearance in the Grapple at the Garden, with the Big Red posting a 2-2 record in duals at MSG in the last two seasons. Cornell will face a
Some of the key matchups in the Northern Iowa dual include Garrett against No. 6 Dylan Peters and possibly Palacio against No. 11 Cooper Moore at 165. Against Edinboro, which has three wrestlers ranked in the top three of their weights, Villalonga will square off with No. 3 Dave Habat, while Dean will meet No. 14 Vic Avery. Cornell is a combined 6-1 all-time against the two programs, going 4-1 all-time against Edinboro and 2-0 vs. Northern Iowa.

In addition to the duals, former Big Red star and four-time NCAA champion Kyle Dake '12 is scheduled to wrestle against world champion Arsen Julfalakyan of Armenia in a Greco-Roman main event,
 
THE STREAKS:
• Cornell has placed in the top five at the NCAA championships in five of the last six seasons and in the top 10 in 10 of the last 12 years.
• Cornell has won eight consecutive EIWA team totals, the longest streak in conference history.
• The Big Red has crowned at least one EIWA champion in each of the last 13 seasons and in 23 of the last 24 years.
• Cornell is 75-13-1 (.848) in dual meet competition in the last six seasons.
• Cornell has won 63 consecutive Ivy League dual meets dating back to the 2001-02 campaign.
• The Big Red has won 35 straight duals against current EIWA competitors dating back to 2010-11.
• Cornell is 74-3-1 (.955) in dual meet action against current EIWA teams dating back to 2004-05, including 68-0 against teams other than Lehigh.
• The Big Red is 29-2 (.935) in its last 31 home duals dating back to the 2009-10 season.
• Big Red wrestling has won 53 consecutive dual meets against unranked teams dating back to the beginning of the 2007-08 season.
• Cornell has won 25 straight meets against New York state opponents.
• Cornell has won six consecutive EIWA championships at 125 pounds (Troy Nickerson in 2009, 2010; Frank Perrelli in 2011, 2012; Nahshon Garrett in 2013, 2014), the most consecutive in one weight class by any school since Lehigh won at 177 pounds from 1974-81, a record eight straight seasons.
 
LAST TIME AT THE GRAPPLE AT THE GARDEN:
• The Cornell wrestling team had the world as its stage in the Most Famous Arena in the World, Madison Square Garden, and put on quite a show in winning both dual matches at the Grapple at the Garden on Dec. 1, 2013.
• The Big Red remained unbeaten with a 32-9 win over Maryland and a thrilling 18-15 triumph over No. 7 Illinois.
• Three wrestlers — Mike Nevinger (141), Gabe Dean (184) and Stryker Lane (HWY) — each bounced back from losses in the first dual to pull out important, clinching wins less than two hours later.
• The win over Illinois came down to the final three matches, as the Illini led 12-9 going into the stretch run.
• Dean, ranked 12th nationally at 184 pounds, was looking to score bonus points against unranked Nikko Reyes. Instead, he found himself trailing 4-2 heading into the third. A late takedown tied the match and Dean was able to tilt his opponent, pinning him with only five seconds left in the match for six huge team points.
• After Jace Bennett lost at 197 pounds by decision to seventh-ranked Mario Gonzalez, the heavyweight match would determine the dual meet winner.
• With the score tied 15-15, Lane rode out Chris Lopez in the third to erase a riding time advantage and to send the match into sudden victory, then overtime, then another sudden victory and a second overtime. In the second overtime, Lane earned an escape to make it 3-2 and earned the huge 4-3 triumph to give Cornell the dual meet win.
 
DAKE WINS GLOBAL WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP AT NEWMAN ARENA:
• Four-time national champion Kyle Dake '13 headlined the first-ever Global Wrestling Championships on Saturday, Nov. 22 at Newman Arena prior to the Big Red's dual meet win over Oklahoma.
• Dake, a native of Lansing, N.Y., defeated four-time All-American and 2010 NCAA champion Andrew Howe for the welterweight title in a three round freestyle bout.
• Dake defeated Howe one round to none, with a cumulative 2-0 score, after earning a first period takedown with nine seconds remaining.
• Dake won his first match since February 2014, when he injured a foot and could not complete the 2014 international season.
• It was part of a three-match card, with Tony Ramos defeating Sam Hazewinkel for the flyweight crown and Tervel Dlagnev topping Tyrell Fortune for a heavyweight championship.
• Dake received a $10,000 purse in addition to the title.
 
DEAN VICTORIOUS AT NWCA ALL-STAR CLASSIC:
• Sophomore Gabe Dean's path to a national championship began at the Palestra on Nov. 1, 2014 at the 2014 NWCA All-Star Classic, and that path looked to be pretty well illuminated.
• The nation's top-ranked wrestler at 184 pounds controlled the match throughout in picking up a 5-2 win over second-ranked Jack Dechow of Old Dominion.
• Wrestling for the All-Star Red team, Dean earned a late first period takedown and rode out Dechow to take a 2-0 lead, then chose bottom to begin the third, earning an escape in the first 30 seconds.
• He added a takedown before the buzzer to enter the final two minutes up 5-0.
• Dechow earned an escape in the third after Dean started on top to get on the scoreboard, then cut the deficit to 5-2 after being awarded a stall point.
 
NOTES TO KNOW:
• Head coach Rob Koll enters the weekend with 248 career coaching wins at Cornell and needs a sweep at the Grapple of the Garden to become the ninth Big Red coach in any sport to reach 250 victories.
• This will be the second time a Cornell team will be front and center at Madison Square Garden in less than a month. The men's hockey team defeated Penn State 3-1 in the second Frozen Apple event on Nov. 30 in front of 15,027 fans.
• Cornell wrestlers had a strong summer - Nahshon Garrett won the 2014 University Freestyle Nationals, while Gabe Dean was the junior freestyle champion at 84kg/185 pounds to earn a spot on the junior world team.
• The Big Red has had at least one individual NCAA champion in six of the last seven years and at least one finalist in seven straight campaigns.
• The Big Red has had 11 different wrestlers win a combined 16 NCAA titles. Kyle Dake is one of three wrestlers to claim four national crowns (doing it in four different weight classes), while Dave Auble and Travis Lee won two titles each.
• Cornell has had 36 wrestlers earn a total of 68 All-America honors, including 49 total All-Americans since 2002.
• Since Rob Koll took over prior to the 1993-94 campaign, Cornell has had 134 NCAA qualifiers, 48 All-Americans and 11 national champions. In the first 63 seasons of the NCAA tournament, the Big Red had 82 total NCAA qualifiers, 16 All-Americans and five national champions.
• The Big Red's eight NCAA qualifiers took care of business against wrestlers who didn't make it to NCAAs a year ago. The eight went 152-0 against wrestlers who did not qualify for the 2014 NCAAs, with 44 pins, 27 tech falls and 25 major decisions. In all, 63 percent of those wins were bonus victories.
• The Big Red has won 12 consecutive Ivy crowns and 63 straight Ivy matches.
• Cornell's 12 straight Ivy League titles builds on the Big Red's record of consecutive Ivy titles by the same team in a sport. The wrestling team has won two more than Cornell had in men's gymnastics (from 1967-68 to 1976-77) and men's lacrosse (1973-74 to 1982-83) and Princeton in men's lacrosse (1994-95 to 2003-04). 
• Every four-year member of the Cornell wrestling team who has enrolled since 1980 has won at least one Ivy League title during their career.
• The Big Red has crowned at least one EIWA champion in each of the last 13 seasons and in 23 of the last 24 years. Only Lehigh, with 15 straight years with an Eastern champion, has a longer current streak.
• Cornell has had at least three individual EIWA champions in six consecutive seasons.
• Seven different wrestlers have won 30 or more matches last season, a school record.
• At 13-1 in dual meets in 2013-14, Cornell finished in double figures in wins for the fourth straight season and the 16th time in 21 years under Rob Koll.
• In the last five seasons, Cornell wrestlers have won EIWA titles at each weight except 285 pounds. The last heavyweight to stand at the top of the podium was Seth Charles in 1999.
• Cornell has won 25 consecutive dual meets against teams from New York dating back to its last loss, a 16-15 decision to Hofstra at the 2004 National Duals in Cleveland, Ohio.
• The Big Red is 250-81-3 all-time against teams from New York state in its history — Army (11-17-1), Binghamton (7-0), Brooklyn Poly (2-0), Buffalo (6-4), Clarkson (2-0), Colgate (29-2), Columbia (86-13), Cortland (17-1), Geneseo (1-0), Hofstra (17-4), Ithaca (12-3), Long Island (1-0), Manhattan (1-0), NYU (2-0), Queens (1-0), RPI (2-0), RIT (7-0-1), St. Lawrence (0-1), Syracuse (42-35-1), Union (2-1) and Wagner (2-0).
• The Big Red's coaching staff has combined for 11 All-America accolades and three individual NCAA titles at a total of two different weight classes as collegiate athletes.
 
TALL IVY:
• Since Rob Koll took over the Cornell program in 1993, the Big Red has gone 96-8-1 (.919) in its 105 Ivy League matches.
• Over that same span, Penn is next best at 85-19-1, followed by Brown (45-59-1).
• Rounding out the field is Columbia 40-65, Harvard 35-69-1 and Princeton 12-93.
• Dating back to the 2002-03 season (12 years), Cornell's perfect 60-0 record laps the competition. Penn is second-best at 45-15, followed by Columbia 29-31, Brown 19-40-1, Harvard 17-42-1 and Princeton 9-51.
• Current Cornell wrestlers are 90-30 in Ivy League dual matches (.750).
• Regular starters Nahshon Garrett at 125 (9-0), Mike Nevinger at 141 (11-3) and Chris Villalonga at 149 (11-1) are a combined 31-4 all-time (.886) against Ivy competition in duals.
• Nevinger (5-0) and Dylan Palacio (5-0) were perfect in Ivy League dual matches this season while competing in each match. Nahshon Garrett and Gabe Dean were both 4-0, while Mark Grey and Brian Realbuto each went 3-0. Both Jace Bennett and Jacob Aiken-Phillips went 4-1 in conference action.
 
DEAN, GARRETT CHOSEN FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED "FACES IN THE CROWD":
• Gabe Dean earned a great deal of attention after he knocked off Penn State's Ed Ruth in the finals of the Southern Scuffle on Jan. 2, 2014. Sports Illustrated even took notice.
• The rookie was featured in the "Faces In The Crowd" section of the Jan. 20, 2014 issue of the magazine, as well as on SI.com.
• Dean was named the U.S.A. Wrestling and EIWA Wrestler of the Week after he ended Ruth's 84-match win streak dating back to 2011 with a 7-4 decision in Chattanooga, Tenn.
• Nahshon Garrett joined Dean as a "Face In The Crowd" in the Dec. 8, 2014 issue of the magazine and on SI.com.
• Garrett was honored after going 3-0 at the Journeymen/ASICS Northeast Duals to help the Big Red go 3-0 in dual meets.

NEXT UP:
• The Big Red starts off the new year at the Southern Scuffle beginning on New Year's Day.
• Cornell finished the two-day event in fourth place at the tournament a season ago with Nahshon Garrett (125) and Gabe Dean (184) each winning tournament titles.