What’s New With the Lehigh Valley Athletic Club?

In a stunning performance in August representing the Lehigh Valley Athletic Club at the Ziolkowski International Championships in Poland, Lehigh freshman Zach Rey beat two wrestlers who placed Top Five at prior Senior Freestyle World Championships. By finishing in 5th place, he also earned the only U.S. men’s team sole Top Five finish during the action in Warsaw.

In Rd. 1, Rey defeated Fatih Cakiroglu of Turkey, one of the eventual bronze medalists for the tourney who placed 5th at the World Championships in 2007. Cakiroglu also placed either 2nd or 3rd four times in the European Championships between 2002-07.

In Rd. 2, Zach beat another top Turkish standout, Recep Kara, who finished 5th at the 2006 World Championships (and 14th in '03). Kara placed 3rd at the '09 European Championships and also was 2nd at the World Military Championships in '07.

In the semis, Rey nearly defeated 2008 Olympic Bronze medalist, Marid Mutalimov (Kazakhstan), the tournament Silver medalist, who also finished 4th in the 2004 Olympic Games and won the prestigious Asian Games twice (’05, ’06), also placing 2nd or 3rd four times.

Zach was tied with 15 seconds left vs. Mutalimov (each won a period, 1-0, with the clinch rule). In a stunning finish in the final 0:10, Zach went for the win by spinning behind the Olympian, then driving him toward the mat for the would-be winning takedown. When no score was signaled, the

coin flip for the o.t. clinch went in favor of Mutalinov, giving him the overwhelming odds to win. Zach then requested a video challenge but it was inconclusive, thus he incurred a mandatory point for losing the challenge, ending the thriller.



Rey led #3 seed, 6’7” Jermail Porter (KSU),
a senior, in the 2009 NCAA quarterfinals

For Rey, the two huge wins in the major international senior level event capped an outstanding first year in which he earned first-team status on the Amateur Wrestling News All-Freshman team. Despite the success (#11 seed and a Round of 12 performance), Zach felt frustrated by a series of near misses he felt he could have won.

In the NCAA quarterfinals, he was 10 seconds from a guaranteed 6th place, via his 3-2 lead vs. gigantic Jermail Porter, Kent State. After a spectacular bear hug move by Porter, Rey nearly countered to wind up on top, but lost the leverage and the takedown in the waning seconds. Zach had taken Porter into tie-breaker at the Virginia Duals before losing, 3-1, and also dropped an overtime decision in the EIWA Finals to NCAA 10th seed Ryan Flores of Columbia.

Rey earned his #11 seed at Nationals by way of regular season wins vs. Top 12’s Joe Fendone, Edinboro, and Dustin Rogers, West Virginia, each (like Porter) a 5th-year senior.

(Scroll down for Hwt. place winners in Poland)


ZIOLKOWSKI INTERNATIONAL – Warsaw, Poland, August 13-14

120kg/264.5 lbs. - Zach Rey, Hopatcong, NJ (Lehigh Valley Athletic Club), 5th Place
WIN Fatih Cakiroglu (Turkey), 5th at the ’07 World Championships, 9th in the ’04 Olympics
WIN Recep Kara (Turkey), 5th at ’06 World Championships, 3rd, ’09 European Championships
LOSS Marid Mutalimov (Kazakhstan), 3rd at ’08 Olympics; 4th in ’04 Olympics
LOSS Maksim Porhorov (Azerbaijan), 1-0, 0-1, 0-1

Men’s freestyle results – 120 kg/264.5 lbs.
Gold – Fardin Masoumi Valadi (Iran)-5th, Olympics (’08); 3rd,Worlds; 4x Asian 1st; World Military 1st (’08)
Silver – Marid Mutalimov (Kazakhstan)-3rd, 4th Olympics (’08, ‘04); 2x Asian 1st (six Top 3 places)
Bronze – Dimitar Kumchev (Bulgaria)-7th, 8th, European Championships (’05, ’08)
Bronze – Maksim Prokhorov (Azerbaijan); 5th, 8th Golden Grand Prix (world class event, Azerbaijan)
5th – Zach Rey (USA) 2nd, EIWA; Rd of 12, NCAAs; 2nd U.S. Jr. World Team Trials
5th – Aleksandr Shemarov (Belarus)- 7th, Olympics (’00); 5th, Worlds (’02); 3rd,6th,8th European
7th – Aleksi Modebadze (Georgia); 5x World Team (8th, 10th in ’03, ’98); 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, European (’01-07)
8th – Racep Kara (Turkey), 5th,Worlds (’06); 3rd-European Championships ’09; 2nd,World Military (’07)
9th – Andrey Svatkovskiy (Kazakhstan); 3rd, World Military ’06; 2nd, 3rd, World Univ. Games ’07,’08
10th – Arjan Bhullar (Canada); 3rd, Pan Am Games ’07; 5th, Pan Am Championships; 5th World Univ. ‘08
**DNP (lost to Rey): Fatih Cakiroglu (Turkey), 9th, Olympics (’04); 5th, Worlds (’07), 4x Top 3, Europe

In related good news for the USA, Missouri Tiger heavyweight super sophomore Dominic Bradley won a Junior World Championship at 120 kg/264.5 lb in Ankara, Turkey against the world’s best 18-20 year olds. All four victims steamrolled by Bradley hailed from former Soviet republics, the dominant force in freestyle, especially at the upper weights. His four victims were Barzarboy Utambetov, Uzbekistan, 6-0, 2-0; Mikhail Gazayev, Azerbaijan, 2-0, 5-0; Maradyn Kushkhov of Ukraine, 2-2, 1-0, and Giorgi Sakandelidze of Georgia, 2-0, 4-0.

Unlike the four rivals in Ankara who lost all eight periods to Bradley, Zach Rey won 1-of-3 bouts (two of six periods) against him to drop another close battle in the finals of the U.S. Jr. World Team Trials on May 23. Rey won their first bout, 1-0, 2-0 and led 1-0 with 0:20 left in period 1 of Round 3 before losing the period and the deciding rubber match. So Bradley gave up twice as many points (4) to Rey than he did vs. all four Junior national champions of the republics.

Score it two big efforts in Europe for the young U.S. heavyweights and one for the LVAC -- which supported USA wrestling by sponsoring Zach 1-way air fare on July 28 to train at the Olympic Training Center. He and the rest of the male/female freestyle teams were then flown by USAW to Poland on August 5, with Rey returning home on August 15. The memorable overseas training experience included a bus ride to visit the preserved prison camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Other notes: Rey is from Hopatcong, NJ and earned a 106-4 three-year mark (79-1 the last two) to place 4th, 1st, 1st at NJ States, winning the last one with a torn ACL. He was a 2005 NHSCA Champ and 2005 Cadet Greco 2nd place, also placing 5th in Cadet Freestyle. In April ’08, he won a NE Regional Senior Freestyle to earn an automatic berth as the youngest freestyle entry at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Las Vegas in June. He went 0-2 vs. the #2 and #3 seeds; in his first bout he dropped a 0-1,2-2 decision to Tervel Dlagnev – scoring the two points vs. this year’s USA’s World Team member in 2009.