After dropping its first three dual meets of the season to ranked opponents, the Binghamton wrestling team traveled to Buffalo looking to get in the win column. After trading the first few bouts, the Bearcats closed the meet out with big wins from graduate student Lou DePrez and redshirt junior Cory Day, as they took the dual 22-9.

“It was a good meet for us,” said Binghamton head coach Kyle Borshoff. “We controlled the dual meet, our guys wrestled hard. I think top to bottom, at all 10 weights, we put out a good effort, and I’m pretty happy with the performance out of each guy that wrestled tonight.”

After dropping his first three bouts of the season, sophomore Micah Roes secured a pair of takedowns in the first period and then proceeded with three minutes of ride time over the rest of the match to record his first victory via a 5-1 decision. This was the first win in the 125-pound weight class for BU this season.

In the 133-pound weight class, redshirt senior Anthony Sobotker led in the second period after a takedown gave him a 5-4 advantage. His opponent, however, quickly reversed and ran away in the third period to win in a 10-5 decision, tying the meet up 3-3.

Redshirt freshman Nate Lucier took the mat as a 141-pounder, grabbing a takedown in the first period before the Bull escaped to tie the bout at two. In the third period, Lucier escaped early to take the lead and then proceeded to avoid a few takedown attempts to win 3-2 and regain the lead for the Bearcats. This is Lucier’s second straight win in a dual match this season.

“There were a lot of close matches and we came out on top of almost all of them,” Borshoff said. “You got to win the close matches in dual meets and we did that tonight. That gets you wins.”

BU strung together wins with back-to-back 3-2 decisions, as graduate student Michael Zarif secured his sixth win of the year in the 149-pound class. The Bulls didn’t go away easy, taking down freshman Fin Nadeau via decision to make it 9-6.

In the 165-pound match, freshman Will Ebert took the mat and the back-and-forth bout came down to the ride time point to give Ebert a win and extend BU’s lead to 12-6. Redshirt junior Sam DePrez won his first dual start of the season with a 2-0 decision thanks to a third-period escape. DePrez defeated the No. 28 174-pounder in the country to earn his second win against a ranked opponent.

“That’s [S. DePrez’s] second-ranked win of the season,” Borshoff said. “Really good performance out of him tonight. We knew that was gonna be, potentially, a swing weight … [S. DePrez] controlled that match. I think he’s settling into the right weight class finally. It’s his first year at 174. I think he feels confident and strong, and he’s starting to have some good results.

Redshirt junior Jacob Nolan dropped his first bout of the year in the 184-pound match against the No. 25 wrestler in the country to make it 15-9. That was followed up by four takedowns in the first period by L. DePrez, which turned into an 18-5 major decision to extend the Bearcat lead to 19-9.

“We were the more offensive team,” Borshoff said. “We generated a lot of offense tonight. We scored points everywhere, and I think we did a really good job of just controlling the offensive positions in every weight class.”

To end the dual, Day took the mat and recorded an early takedown followed by a second takedown in the second to get a 5-0 decision. This earned him his fifth win of the season, which handed the Bearcats their first dual win of the year.

“We wrestled some of the best teams in the country, and that prepared us for this match,” Borshoff said. “We’re wrestling two Big 10 teams next weekend, and those matches will continue to prepare us for the important part of our season.”

Next up for the Bearcats is the Garden State Grapple, where they’re scheduled to take on Michigan State and Indiana on Sunday, Dec. 4. First bout against the Spartans is set for 2 p.m. at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.