LOCKED IN: Princeton University wrestler Brett Harner, right, battles a foe in a bout last season. Last week, sophomore Harner took eighth place at 184 pounds in the prestigious Midlands Championships at Northwestern. The Tigers have a pair of home matches on January 9 as they welcome Sacred Heart and Hofstra to Dillon Gym. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Last season, the Princeton University wrestling team produced a remarkable reversal of fortune, posting an 11-4 record after going 2-13 a year before.

The team’s turnaround helped the Tigers rise to a tie with Penn for second in the Ivy League standings and gave the program its first campaign with both double-digit wins and fewer than five losses for the first time since the 1980-81 season.

While ninth-year head coach Chris Ayres was pleased with the team’s breakthrough season, he is not about to rest on last year’s laurels.

“We have totally built on last year,” said Ayres. “As a coach you want things to move quicker. People say you have to take baby steps but I want them to take big boy steps.”

Ayres, who went from a walk-on at Lehigh to an EIWA champion and a sixth-place finisher in the NCAA championships at 157 pounds during his college days, believes Princeton can be a national power.

“The progress has been there; what can be taken from where we are right now is that we can be one of the top programs in the country,” asserted Ayres.

“We are really young, this is the team for the next couple of years. We have been getting consistently stronger. We are getting good guys in and developing them into a program that wins.”

The Tigers have produced some strong efforts since returning from the break, taking 15th at prestigious Midlands Championships at Northwestern last week and then performing well at the F&M Open last Saturday.

“It was a great learning opportunity, we wrestled tight,” said Ayres, reflecting on his team’s performance at the Midlands event. “We didn’t open up. If we open up, we could do really well. At F&M, we took most of the guys who haven’t been starters. We got three guys onto the finals, that was pretty good.”

Junior star Abram Ayala, who took fifth at the Midlands at 197 pounds, is clearly one of Princeton’s top guys.

“Ayala is totally obsessed with being an All-American and national champion,” said Ayres. “He is thinking about it too much. His training plan is to get away from wrestling when he isn’t in the practice room.”

Sophomore Brett Harner, an eighth-place finisher at 184 pounds at Midlands, is good to have in the room.

“Brett is a great leader, he leads by example,” added Ayres. “He is also vocal for a sophomore. He backs it up with how hard he works. He just has a few things to work through to put himself in position to be competitive at the NCAAs.”

Senior Adam Krop (149 pounds), for his part, is working hard for a breakthrough. “He’s been really good, he hasn’t had that marquee match where he beats a first line wrestler,” said Ayres.  “When he beats someone like that, he will be capable of big things.”

Ayres believes that sophomore Jordan Laster is on the verge of big things at 141.

“Laster works so hard; he does the right things in terms of discipline and work ethic,” said Ayres. “He is not getting the results he deserves. He needs to find that system to be more consistent in competition.”

Freshman Jonathan Schleifer (165) has the ability to produce some special results.

“Schleifer is amazing; of all the people I have coached at Lehigh and here, he has the most potential of anyone,” said Ayres.

“It is hard here as a freshman in relation to school, there is a lot going on. He is making progress and doing well with it. He is under the radar, no one has an idea of how good he is.”

Another freshman, Francesco Fabozzi (157), has the potential to be really good.

“Fabozzi been doing well; he needs to be more consistent, it is easy to say, hard to do,” said Ayres.

“At Midlands, he wrestled one of the best matches I have had at Princeton and then he was flat the next day. He needs that consistency in competition. Once he figures that out, the sky is the limit.”

Assessing his squad collectively, Ayres believes there is no limit to what his wrestlers can accomplish.

“All of the guys are on the verge of getting to the next level,” said Ayres. “Ray O’Donnell (285), for example, is on the verge of making a breakthrough. Things move slowly and then something clicks and there is a big jump. I think that’s where he is.”

With Princeton hosting Sacred Heart and Hofstra on January 9 in its last action before a three-week hiatus for exams, Ayres is looking for things to click.

“What I would like to see is their reaction to the things they left at Midlands,” said Ayres.

“You want to see them improve from the next competition. I want to see how some of them react to what they were missing at Midlands.”