But few visits have been enjoyable as the present one. The Columbia wrestling team arrived in the Golden State Wednesday and two days later walked away with two come-from-behind victories at the Stanford Duals, 27-11 over the host school and 22-16 over the University of California at Davis.
"This was a very good day of wrestling," said Buckley, Columbia's Andrew F. Barth Head Coach of Wrestling. "Although these were our first dual meets of the season and we were missing some people, we did very well against two strong teams." Stanford and UC Davis are both members of the Pac-10 for wrestling; the Aggies are one of the league's pre-season favorites.
Columbia trailed after the first bout of each match, as junior Jerome Greco, substituting for the injured Brandon Kinney, lost an 18-3 technical fall to Stanford's Tanner Garner, ranked fourth nationally, and a 5-1 decision to Davis's Marcos Orozco. But the Lions fought back strongly.
Against Stanford, 18th-ranked senior Matt DeLorenzo scored a 16-4 major decision over Cameron Teitelman at 133 pounds and junior Derek Francavilla posted another major decision, 13-4 over Rafael Chavez at 141.
In his first action in two years, junior Anthony Constantino then decisioned Tyler Parker at 149 pounds, 3-0. It was Constantino's first collegiate bout since competing in the 2005 NCAA Championships; he missed the 2005-06 season while on a leave of absence from Columbia, and was injured the first half of this season.
His bout gave Columbia an 11-5 lead, which promptly increased to 17-5 when sophomore Derek Sickles pinned Steven Frehn at 157 pounds, in 1:03.
Stanford fought back. The Cardinal closed to 17-8 as Brian Perry beat senior Ricky Turk in overtime at 165, 10-5, spoiling the co-captain's homecoming in his native state. Feist then surprised senior Matt Palmer with a 6-5 decision to pull Stanford within 17-11.
Like Constantino, Palmer was competing in his first bout as a collegian this season. He was not in school during the first semester, when he competed unattached while placing second in the Nittany Lion Open. Palmer is ranked 11th nationally.
With Stanford, coached by native Long Islander Kerry McCoy, a former Olympian and NCAA champion, just six points away from tying the match, Columbia's higher weights came through. Senior Justin Barent, ranked 14th nationally, more than justified the ranking as he defeated Zack Giesen with a 14-2 major decision to give Columbia a 21-11 lead. Junior Nick Sommerfeld then posted his team-leading 10th victory of the season by edging Jared Boyer, 7-5 in sudden-victory overtime. His win put Columbia up 24-11 to clinch the team victory.
Junior Jed Wade evened his season record at 4-4 when he concluded the match with a 6-1 decision over Phillip Doerner at heavyweight.
The Lions faced tougher going against UC Davis. They took a 6-3 lead on DeLorenzo's 3-2 decision over Omar Gaitan at 133 and sophomore Sal Tirico's 5-3 victory at 141. It appeared they would win at 149 as well, but Shawn Haratani rallied to edge Matt Dunn, 13-10.
Derek Sickles was up next, at 157 pounds, substituting for nationally-ranked Devin Mesanko. The sophomore faced a major battle in highly-regarded Jon Clark.
"The bout was pretty even," Buckley said. "Then Derek reversed Clark, right to his back." With 4:45 gone, Sickles posted his second pin of the day, only his third of the season. "Derek did a great job for us," the coach noted.
Still the Aggies rallied. Dustin Noack defeated Ricky Turk at 165, 7-3, to pull Davis within 12-9 and set up a confrontation between Columbia's 11th-ranked Matt Palmer and the Aggies' fourth-ranked Ken Cook.
But Palmer wasn't feeling well, and Buckley inserted senior Dustin Tillman, normally a 165-pounder. He lost a major decision to Cook by a 12-4 score. UC Davis led, 13-12.
The roller-coaster match took another Columbia leap, as Barent registered his second major of the day, 12-2 to put the Lions up, 16-13. The Aggies tied it at 16-all when Eliot Kelly defeated Nick Sommerfeld at 197, 4-3.
For the second straight season, it had come down to heavyweight. In last season's match, at the Virginia Duals, Columbia had hung on to a 17-16 victory despite losing the heavyweight bout. This time, they won going away, as first-year Kevin Lester posted the biggest victory of his short collegiate career, pinning Broc Maffia in exactly one minute.
"Maffia's good," Buckley said. "He had beaten Jed Wade pretty well [12-5] in Las Vegas."
The 6-foot-5 Lester wrestled aggressively against Maffia with the match on the line.
"Kevin almost had an early takedown, but the guy scrambled out," Buckley recalled. "Then Kevin hit a headlock. It was a real sneaky move." Maffia went down and stayed down, pinned in exactly one minute to give Columbia a 22-16 victory and give Buckley, an assistant coach at UC Davis in 1997-98 , a particularly sweet victory against his old school.
Columbia remains in California for two more matches Sunday, January 7, meeting Cal State Bakersfield, another Pac-10 team, and San Francisco State, in Bakersfield.
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