The Binghamton wrestling team competed in its first events since joining the Independence Division in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association earlier in the week, at the Big Red and Black Knight Invitationals on Sunday morning.

“It’s a rare opportunity when we have every guy on our team competing,” said Binghamton head coach Kyle Borshoff. “It was nice to see everybody get some matches … overall, I thought it was a good weekend for us and it will be helpful for us moving forward.”

Binghamton (0-1) began Sunday’s slate at 9 a.m. at Cornell’s five-team Big Red Invitational with six wrestlers winning their respective brackets at the two-tiered round-robin tournament. Graduate student Cory Day began his day with two wins by pin and a 5-0 win via decision in his final dual earned him the victory in the 285-pound A bracket. Junior Will Ebert continued his strong start, moving to 8-0 on the season with four wins while clinching the 184-pound A bracket. Sophomore Carson Wagner rounded out the A bracket victories for BU with a 3-1 record on the day to claim the 125-pound win.

“[Ebert is] doing a great job so far, he’s 8-0 on the season,” Borshoff said. “He’s got some great wins under his belt … he’s doing a great job from all three positions — neutral, top and bottom — right now and I’m certainly looking forward to watching him grow throughout the season.”

Several BU underclassmen found success in the B brackets of the Invitational. Redshirt freshman Jay McDonnell, propelled by two sudden victories, went 3-0, claiming the 125-pound bracket. His fellow redshirt freshmen, Caleb Sweet and Trent Sibble, each tied for a BU best record on the day, with both going 5-0 in the 149-pound and 285-pound brackets, respectively.

“It’s encouraging,” Borshoff said. “It’s always encouraging to see the younger guys go and get some wins … I thought they did a really really nice job, and it’s encouraging for the future of the program to see those guys have success and winning matches.”

BU found less success in West Point, finishing eighth out of nine schools at Army’s Black Knight Invitational which included wrestlers from No. 1 Penn State and No. 17 Rutgers. Leading the way for the Bearcats was junior Carter Baer. After a technical fall loss to the No. 1 ranked wrestler in the 165-pound class, he picked up technical fall and major decision wins before falling short in his fifth-place match. Senior Ivan Garcia also secured a sixth-place finish for Binghamton, going 3-1 before also dropping his fifth-place matchup in the 149-pound bracket.

“We finished better in a lot of our neutral attacks,” Borshoff said. “I thought we won the bottom position better this weekend. We weren’t getting ridden in most cases, and those are two things we need to continue to focus on. There are areas we still need to improve, but we made small gains in some of the areas we had targeted in practice.”

Sunday’s two tournaments mark Binghamton’s first events since announcing its membership in the new EIWA Independence division last week. Binghamton will face off against each of the other six teams in the division over the 2024-25 season, and beginning in the 2025-26 season the league will begin a full divisional dual meet schedule.

“I’m looking forward to just having competitive battles with the schools that we ended up with in our division,” Borshoff said. “I’m hopeful that we’re going to be able to come out on top of the Independence Division this season and that’s certainly the goal.”

The Bearcats will next compete at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Collegiate Wrestling Invitational from Friday, Dec. 6 to Saturday, Dec. 7. First bout will be at a time to be determined at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.