HERSHEY, Pa. – Both Williams College wrestlers finished in their seeded spots at the 2015 NCAA Wrestling Championships on Saturday with Jorge Lopez third at 157 pounds and Chris Chorzepa fourth at 184.

 

This marks the second year in a row the tandem of Lopez and Chorzepa earned all-America honors.

 

"Today was a roller coaster-of ups and downs with lots of twists and turns, but looking back at the ride it was awesome," Williams coach Scott Honecker said. "Neither of our guys going today got what they ultimately wanted, but they can really be proud of their finish, both for themselves, and for the program."

 

In the Saturday morning semifinal round, Lopez (27-1) met up with second-seeded Reece Lefever of Wabash College. Lefever was 21-1 on the year. One of these wrestlers had to lose for the second time this season.

 

Last year in the third place match Lopez defeated Lefever with a pin at 4 minutes, 40 seconds.

 

In the opening round both wrestlers were in attack mode, but the period ended scoreless.

 

Lefever got a point for escaping to start the second round and he carried that 1-0 lead into the third period with Lopez starting from the down position. Lopez tied the match with a quick escape. After three periods the match was tied at one and headed to sudden death.

 

With 41 seconds left in overtime round Lefever executed a move and took down Lopez, but Eph head coach Scott Honecker challenged the call and a video review was conducted to determine if it was a takedown.

 

After a two-minute delay for the video review it was confirmed that Lefever had successfully executed a takedown and won the match 3-1.

 

Lopez (27-2) next lined up against Kevin Collins of Ithaca College in the consolation semifinals for the right to advance to the third place match. Collins and Lopez met previously this season and Lopez defeated Collins 5-2 to repeat as the NCAA Northeast Regional 157 champion. On Saturday, Lopez won, 4-3, to reach the third-place match at the NCAAs for the second straight year.

 

Lopez met Steven DeWitt of Loras College for third place in the nation. Lopez did not even need the entire first round to secure his second straight third place finish at the NCAA Championships. He pinned DeWitt at 2:24 for his 29th win of the year and the 91st win of his career to claim third.

 

Lopez was 29-2 this season and in his career at Williams he is now 91-14.

 

With the win by Lopez the Ephs recorded their highest team point total at an NCAA Championship with 33 points. 17.5 points came from Lopez and 15.5 from Chorzepa, who had yet to wrestle his third place bout. Temporarily this slotted the Ephs in 10th place.

 

Saturday morning, Chorzepa (40-2) squared off against Patrick Sheehan of NYU (25-4) continuing his quest to repeat his third place finish in 2014.

 

Once again Chorzepa came out highly energized and took the match to Sheehan. At 1:14 Chorzepa pinned Sheehan and advanced to a match that would put him in position to finish three through six.

 

The win was Chorzepa's 41st of the season (41-2).

 

Next, Chorzepa met Richard Dowdley of Heidelberg, who accounted for one of Chorzepa's seven career losses.

 

While Lopez was battling Collins, Chorzepa was one mat over taking on Dowdley in a re-match in the 184 semifinals. Chorzepa again opened on fire and ran up an 8-4 first period lead. Dowdley posted a takedown in the second period, narrowing his deficit to 8-6, but Chorzepa still had nearly two minutes of riding time in the bank.

 

Late in the third period, Chorzepa went over 2:30 in riding time and then the Eph sophomore recorded a near fall to add to his riding time to fashion a 12-6 win, advancing to his second consecutive appearance in a third place match.

 

For third place, Chorzepa wrestled Daniel Olsen of Wheaton College (Ill.). Olsen entered the tourney unseeded and with a record of 2-1 at 184, but when he faced Chorzepa he was 6-2 at 184.

 

Olsen attacked Chorzepa immediately a notched a takedown in the first 10 seconds to go up 2-0. It went to 2-1 on a Chorzepa escape, but again Olsen had a takedown to go up 4-1. Chorzepa escaped again, but Olsen registered five takedowns in the first round and with five escapes the Eph sophomore trailed 10-5 with 52 seconds left in the first period. The first round ended with Olsen up 10-5.

 

Chrozepa was in the down position to start the second period. He escaped and had Olsen's leg and tried for a takedown and eventually succeeded to make the score 10-8 with 90 seconds left in the round.

 

On a re-start Chorzepa was able to ride Olsen and eliminate Olsen's riding time, but he still trailed 10-8.

 

The third period opened with Olsen leading 10-8 and Olsen chose to be in the down position. Olsen took an 11-8 lead, but then he got hit with a stalling point with 1:15 left, making it 11-9. Chorzepa was building riding time, but unable to turn Olsen.

 

After a stalemate and a re-start with 27 seconds left Olsen was again in the down position. Olsen got hit with another stalling point and the match with his riding time point Chorzepa forced sudden victory time.

 

Early in the overtime session, it appeared that Olsen had taken Chorzepa down and it prompted a video review request by Olsen's coach, which confirmed that Olsen had recorded a takedown to win 13-11. Chorzepa finished fourth in the nation.

 

Chorzepa finished the season with an impressive record of 42-3 and he now sports a two-record of 61-8.

 

"Chris overcame a lot this weekend,"  Honecker said. "He broke his nose in practice after regionals and had to mentally prepare himself for that adversity because you knew there was going to be some discomfort there. I talked yesterday about how Chris came back from a poor performance to make All-American. He wasn't satisfied with that -- he showed up today to get his face back."

 

After the third place matches the Ephs had recorded their highest team point total in program history. The 33 points allowed the team to equal the program's best finish at nationals, 10th out of 55 teams.

 

Augsburg College won the championship with 100 points with 10 wrestlers competing.

 

Williams was the highest finishing team from north of Pennsylvania and the New England region.