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Gallaudet Wrestling Returns as a Club Sport

The Gallaudet Club wrestling team started their 2008-09 season with just one week of practice, after being reestablished as a NCWA team, almost 4 years after their last match.  The Bison opened in the Retreiver Invitational Duals at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, November 16 and came away 0-4 as a team, but several individual wrestlers did very well and showed how bright the future is for Gallaudet wrestling.

A full wrestling team is 11 wrestlers, one for each of 11 weight classes.  Gallaudet brought seven wrestlers to the 5 team dual meet, and all the Gallaudet wrestlers exceeded expectations and gave their best.  The best performance was turned in by Ando Ferguson, who went 3-1, with three  pins.  The freshman suffered his lone loss to a senior from UMBC, who is the defending conference and national champion.  Head Coach Thad Ferguson was pleased with Ando's performance against such a talented wrestler.  "What surprised me was that Ando, who is 17 years old, lasted 2 minutes and 46 seconds against the national champion."

Also performing well was Justin Lathus who went 2-2 with 2 pins.  He was 2-1 in the 235 pound class and 0-1 in the 285 pound class as he moved up to the heavyweight class to face a 284 pounder.

The final scores of the matches were:

Towson State University 37-18

University of Maryland/Baltimore County 60-0

University of Delaware 51-6

Rensselear Polytechnic Institute 45-12

All four teams have had more time to prepare for the meet as Gallaudet just started practicing last week, and should continue to improve as the season goes on.  Also, all the wrestlers were several pounds overweight and had to wrestle up one weight class. In future meets they should all make weight.