#6 Cornell (4-2, 0-0 EIWA, 0-0 Ivy) vs. #20 Lehigh (4-5, 1-0 EIWA)

Date & Time: Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023 at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Friedman Wrestling Center (Ithaca, N.Y.)
Twitter: @CUBigRedGameday | @BigRedWrestling
Watch Live: ESPN+
 

STORY LINES

• Two EIWA titans will square off as dual meet competition kicks into high gear with No. 6 Cornell and No. 20 Lehigh meeting on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 6:30 p.m. in the Friedman Wrestling Center.
• The contest will be broadcast live on ESPN+ with Andy Malnoske on the call. 
• The Big Red and the Mountain Hawks have claimed 22 of the past 23 EIWA team titles and are two of the favorites once again this year.
• Cornell is ranked sixth nationally in the latest USA Today/NWCA Division I Wrestling Coaches Poll and is 4-2 with five of its six duals against nationally ranked foes.
• Cornell has set its sights high, believing it should be in the mix for yet another top 10 team finish.
• The Big Red has finished in the top 10 at every championship (excepting the 2021 championship when Cornell didn't compete) since 2008, joining Iowa in making that claim.  
• Nine Big Red wrestlers are ranked in the top 25 of Intermat's rankings entering the week. 
• Cornell won its 18th Ivy League title in the last 19 seasons, but the first under head coach Mike Grey after he won four as a student-athlete and eight more as an assistant coach.
• Eight NCAA qualifiers return this season (Dom LaJoie, Arujau, Diakomihalis, Julian Ramirez, Chris Foca, Jonathan Loew, Jacob Cardenas and Lewis Fernandes), including All-Americans Arujau, Diakomihalis and Loew.
• After winning its 850th dual meet all-time last Saturday at No. 8 Virginia Tech (22-12), Diakomihalis will have a chance to hit a milestone of his own. He enters the Lehigh meet with 99 career wins, one shy of becoming the 26th wrestler in school history to win 100 matches.
 

THE STREAKS

• The Big Red is 85-5 (.944) in its last 90 duals against current EIWA competitors dating back to 2010-11.
• Cornell is 124-8-1 (.936) in dual meet action against current EIWA teams dating back to 2004-05, including 112-1 (.991) against teams other than Lehigh (2019 loss at Princeton).
• Cornell has won 97 of its last 98 Ivy League dual meets dating back to the 2001-02 campaign.
• Big Red wrestling is 109-2 in dual meets (.982) against unranked teams dating back to the beginning of the 2007-08 season.
• Cornell is 140-33 (.809) in dual meet competition in the past 11 seasons.
• Cornell is 55-9 (.859) in its last 64 road dual matches.
• The Big Red has crowned at least one EIWA champion in each of the last 19 seasons and in 29 of the last 30 years.
• The Big Red is 63-12 (.840) in its last 75 home duals dating back to the 2009-10 season.
• Cornell has won 41 straight meets against New York state opponents.
• Junior Yianni Diakomihalis is 46-2 and sophomore Vito Arujau is 31-2 in dual meets during their careers.
• Diakomihalis' recently snapped 75-match win streak will go down as the second-longest streak in program history (Kyle Dake '13 won his final 77 matches).
• Dating back to high school, Diakomihalis has won 309 of his last 311 matches in folkstyle (.994).
 

SERIES NOTES

• Lehigh leads the all-time series 63-33-3, though Cornell has had the better of it recently.
• Cornell has won seven of the last 11 duals against its EIWA rival despite three straight wins by Lehigh.
• The series began in 1910, a 5-2 Big Red victory in Ithaca.
• Lehigh snapped a five-match Cornell win streak in the series in 2016 with a convincing 25-13 victory over the shorthanded Big Red, but Cornell rallied from an 17-3 halftime in 2017 in Bethlehem for a 21-20 win behind pins by Brian Realbuto (174) and Gabe Dean (184).
 

CORNELL, LEHIGH DOMINATE EIWA

• Cornell and Lehigh have been the dominant programs in the EIWA for the last two decades, winning 22 of the last 23 championships. 
• The Big Red had won 11 consecutive championship titles (2007-17), sandwiched around the Mountain Hawks winning six of the previous seven crowns. 
• Lehigh had won four consecutive titles to give it 37 all-time before the Big Red snapped that string this past spring at home.
• The Big Red's 26 team titles ranks behind only Lehigh's 37, while its 166 individual titles is second only to the Mountain Hawks' 225. 
• The Big Red had its 47-match win streak against EIWA opponents snapped in a 2016 home loss to Lehigh, but sports a 124-8-1 record (.936) against league opponents dating back to 2004-05, including 112-1 (.991) against opponents other than the Mountain Hawks (2019 loss at Princeton).
 

WORLD CUP

• Senior Yianni Diakomihalis '23 and volunteer assistant coach Nick Gwiazdowski both came home with gold medals after helping Team USA win the Men's Freestyle World Cup this past weekend at the Xtream Arena in Coralville, Iowa.
• The United States won the finals over Iran 6-4 to claim the gold, with three-time NCAA champ Diakomihalis falling in a narrow 5-4 decision against 2022 world champion Rahman Amouzadhalili. 
• That came on the heels of Team USA's 10-0 sweep of Georgia that featured an 11-0 tech fall over 2016 World silver medalist Beka Lomtadze at 65 kg. 
• He opened the tournament with a 10-3 loss to world bronze medalist Tulga Tumur Ochir of Mongolia in a 7-3 U.S. team win.
• Gwiazdowski was a team member at 125 kg, but did not see action.
• It was the 15th time the U.S. has won the event and the first time since 2018. 
 

NOTES TO KNOW

• Cornell's 17 straight Ivy League titles from 2003-19 is a record of consecutive Ivy titles by the same team in a sport. The Big Red won four more than Cornell had in men's gymnastics (from 1967-68 to 1976-77) and men's lacrosse (1973-74 to 1982-83), as well as 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.
• Since the Friedman Wrestling Center opened in January of 2003, the Big Red is 70-9 in dual matches (.886) there.
• Since the start of Ivy competition, the Big Red is 307-53-1 (.852) with 41 league titles in 65 seasons (13 second place finishes). That's 119  games clear of second-place Penn (187-170-7) and 128.5 games ahead of Princeton (178-171-5).
• Prior to stepping on the mat against Stanford on Nov. 20, junior Yianni Diakomihalis hadn't wrestled in a Cornell singlet since winning the NCAA title on March 23, 2019 — a span of 973 days. Same for sophomore Vito Arujau, whose last match came earlier that same morning in the fourth-place match.
 

LAST TIME OUT

• The Cornell wrestling team earned its second win over a top 10 opponent away from home in a 48-hour span, topping No. 8 Virginia Tech 22-12 at the Moss Arts Center. 
• Two days removed from its win over No. 3 Arizona State in Austin, Texas, Cornell took the lead three matches into the dual on Chris Foca's win by fall at 174 pounds and never looked back. 
• The Big Red won 5-of-6 matches between ranked wrestlers, though third-ranked Vito Arujau suffered his first loss of the season in a narrow 3-2 loss to 10th-ranked Sam Latona at 133 pounds.
• Foca's second period fall came on the heels of Julian Ramirez's shutout of No. 22 Connor Brady in a 3-0 victory at 165 to even the dual at 3-3. 
• After Tech got back within 9-6, Jacob Cardenas topped No. 21 Andy Smith, nearly majoring him in a 10-3 triumph. 
• Brett Ungar at 125 and Vince Cornella at 141 upset higher ranked opponents with Ungar winning in overtime over No. 15 Eddie Ventresca and Cornella majoring No. 15 Tom Cook, 12-4.
• Three-time NCAA champion Yianni Diakomihalis closed the dual with a solid 6-2 win over No. 11 Caleb Henson for his 99th career victory in a Big Red singlet.
 

HEY BROTHER

• Several wrestlers on the current Cornell roster have brotherly ties to the program.
• Vito Arujau's brother, Nick, wrestled for the Big Red for three seasons from 2011-14.
• Colt Barley's brother Jonah was on the Cornell wrestling team from 2017-21.
• Brothers Yianni and Greg Diakomihalis, and Colton and Wyatt Yapoujian are currently on the team with one another.
• Recently the Big Red have fielded both Kyle and Corey Dake, Mike and Mark Grey, Gabe and Max Dean, Jake and Josh Arnone, Nick and Ryan Bridge, Logan and Conner David, Billy and Jake George, Taylor and Michael Moore, Duke and William Pickett, Brian and Dylan Realbuto, Mike and Matt Russo, as well as Cam and Taylor Simaz among many others historically.
 

NEXT UP

• The Big Red will hit the road to face Brown (12 p.m.) and Harvard (6 p.m.) on Saturday, Jan. 21.
• The contests will be broadcast live on ESPN+.