South Mountaineer Volume 37, Issue 20

              SPORTS
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Contents
Page 9
♦Spring sports updates
and schedules
«Two-tii
his thirc
June Eni
Page 10
♦ Women's basketball:
Tournament review
♦ Men's basketball:
Tournament review
Page 11
♦ Wrestling: EIWA
individual results
SOUTH
MOUNTAINEER
Volume 37, Issue 20
March 8,1995
Lehigh Pins
Down EIWA Title
Champions
Rick Hepp (above) pinned Brandon
Slay of Penn in 46 seconds to win the
167-pound championship. Hepp was
the tournament's Outstanding Wrestler and won the Billy Sheridan Award
for the most falls in the least amount
of time. Lehigh's 1995 ETAVA champions (below from left). Tom Koch, Steve
Cassidy, and Hepp. John McCumber
and Bill Closson will join them in Iowa
for the NCAA Championships on
March 16-18.
By ROB SCHMIDT
Sports Information Assistant
ANNAPOLIS, MD - One of
the goals head coach Bob
Latessa and his Lehigh Engineers set in the preseason
was to win the EIWA championship. It took a team effort to make that goal a reality Saturday in Annapolis,
MD, as Lehigh grapplers
came up big when they had
to', and left Syracuse and
Navy in the dust ofthe Engineer express.
A sea of brown and white
engulfed the Naval Academy, from the vocal Lehigh
supporters filling the stands to the awards platform. In addition to the team title, Rick Hepp
picked up the tournament's Outstanding Wrestler
award, as well as the Billy Sheridan Award (for the
most falls in the least amount of time). Latessa was
elected EIWA Coach of the Year.
If any Engineer typified the steamroller momentum Lehigh generated on the tournament's
second day the most, it was Tom Koch. On the way
to his 126-pound title, Koch defeated the first,
second, and fourth seeds, each of whom beat him
earlier in the season. Koch's 5-2 win over No. 1 seed
Fred Fabbrini of Syracuse in the semi-finals on
Saturday morning was the spark that ignited the
Lehigh fire. His role as catalyst continued with a 6-
4 sudden death victory over Navy's Mike Clayton,
the No. 2 seed, to take the title.
"I finally got into my groove this tournament. I
knew that I had to keep after (Clayton), and didn't
give him any space," Koch said ofhis championship
winning bout. "In the last minute he was using up
a lot of steam and I was picking it up. I knew going
in I could win this tournament. I just wanted to set
the stage for the rest of our guys."
Koch, John McCumber, and Bill Closson's semifinal bouts had great significance in the team title
race. At the start ofthe second day, Syracuse had
eight wrestlers alive for a championship, three of
whom would face the Lehigh trio. Each was seeded
higher than his Engineer counter part.
McCumber followed Koch's upset of top-seed
Fabbrini with a 3-1 sudden death win over No. 2 Jeff
Duque in the 134 pound semi-finals. Closson capped
off the semi-final round by crushing Orangeman
Jason Gleasman, sticking him to the mat in 1:02.
If Koch was the catalyst of the Engineer express, then Steve Cassidy and Rick Hepp made up
the steady power plant. Each was a No. 1 seed, and
lived up to every expectation. Cassidy rolled through
his bouts, leading up to his 150-pound championship contest with Syracuse's Jeff Liberman. Little
did he know how important his championship bout
- see EIWA, pg. 11.