The NYU men’s wrestling team won dual matches in an impressive fashion at home last night at the Coles Sports Center, improving their record to 16-3.

Due to inclement weather on Jan. 24, the Grapplers match against Stevens Institute of Technology was postponed until Feb. 5 as part of a double header. The Grapplers entered the night on a seven match win streak. Senior Brian Anderson, a captain of the team, was recently awarded the UAA Athlete of the Week for his dominant performances against Ursinus College and Muhlenberg College.

In the night’s first match, the Grapplers faced the United States Merchant Marine Academy, beating them 28-7, giving them their 15th win and a 5-0 record in the Centennial Conference. They earned their eighth straight win and 24th-seed ranking by the National Wrestling Coaching Association.

The match against Stevens was much more hard fought. It began with NYU sophomore Wayne Yuan winning the first match by forfeit over Stevens’ Rob Murray. Grappler standout sophomore Nathan Pike dominated the second match over Anthony Geiger, 19-5 giving NYU the 4-3 lead.

“Our team is really starting to mold together and things are looking great,” Pike said. “A lot of our wrestlers fought hard this match because we knew how important coming away with a win was.”

Brandon Jones, 14-3 for the season, competed in the next match against Stevens’ Ryan Wilson. Jones won by technical fault 20-3 giving NYU a lead of 9-3 in the match overall. Sophomore Matthew Coppola won both of his matches on the night. In his second match, Coppola was able to pull out an overtime victory on a takedown.

After five bouts against Stevens, NYU led 12-7 when sophomore John Messinger took to the mat. Although Messinger ultimately lost his match 14-9, he was able to avoid the major decision and NYU held the advantage of 14-10. Junior Matt Eulau did not fare any better, losing his match and allowing Stevens to take the lead 16-14. However, senior captain Patrick Sheehan was able to put the Grapplers back on top with a 12-4 victory to tie the match up 16-16 with two matches remaining.

Sophomore William Gockel-Figge was able to pin his opponent 1:23 into his match, giving NYU a crucial six-point lead. The Grapplers then sent out Anderson, who simply needed to avoid being pinned to ensure the Grapplers’ second victory of the night.

“The team had been looking forward to the Stevens match ever since they beat us in Madison Square Garden,” Eulau said. “Everyone understood that if we wrestled to our potential we could beat them. There wasn’t anything really special we did, the coaches told us we could beat them and we all bought in and wrestled hard.”

The Grapplers will be back in action on Feb. 7 to take on McDaniel College at Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia.

A version of this article appeared in the Feb. 5 print edition. Email Kyle Luther at [email protected].