Lee gets second NCAA crown
Advertiser Staff
Cornell senior Travis Lee won his second NCAA wrestling title yesterday, defeating Shawn Bunch of Edinboro (Pa.) University, 6-3, in the 133-pound final of the 75th NCAA Championships at St. Louis, Mo.
Lee, a 2001 Saint Louis School graduate from Liliha, finished the season with a 37-1 record, his only loss coming to Bunch in the championship match of the Southern Scuffle at Greensboro, N.C., on Dec. 30.
Lee
Bunch, a junior from Leavenworth, Kan., finished 40-2, with both losses coming against Lee, including in the semifinals of the Las Vegas Invitational on Dec. 4.
Lee, who also won the 125-pound NCAA championship in 2003, became the first Cornell wrestler to win in two different weight classes and only the school's second two-time champion.
Lee is only the third wrestler from an Ivy League school to win two NCAA titles and the first since Cornell's Dave Auble won in 1959 and 1960. Lee also became the first Ivy League wrestler to earn four All-America honors.
Lee, the top seed at 133, took a 2-0 lead in the first period yesterday after spinning around Bunch to score a takedown.
The match was tied 2-2 when Lee scored a single-leg takedown to take the lead for good at 4-2 with a minute left in the second period.
With the score 5-3 in the third period, Bunch shot a very deep double but was not able to finish as the wrestlers went out of bounds.
Lee then finished the match by scoring a point for riding time.
