Virginia's Paul Bjorlo and Rocco Caponi Compete For UVa Wrestling In The 42nd Annual Midlands Championships

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Dec. 29, 2004

EVANSTON, Ill. – The University of Virginia wrestling team’s Paul Bjorlo (Reston, Va./South Lakes) and Rocco Caponi (Uniontown, Ohio/SVSM) began competition in the 42nd annual Midlands Championships at Welsh-Ryan Arena on the campus of Northwestern University. The Midlands Championships is recognized as one of the premier wrestling events in the country. UVa’s Bjorlo won his first two matches and turned in a mark of 2-1 at 157-pounds in the first session, while Caponi went 0-2 in the first day of competition at 174-pounds.

Bjorlo started the day off with back-to-back wins over Penn’s Brock Wittmeyer (4-1) and Iowa’s Alex Grunder (Iowa) to start the event with a record of 2-0. In his next match, Bjorlo dropped a hard-fought bout to Stanford’s #1-seeded Matt Gentry by the score of 11-4. Bjorlo will now face #11-seeded Mike Kimberlin from Northwestern in his next match.

Caponi dropped an 11-1 major decision to American’s Dan Waters before earning a 13-0 major decision win over Triton’s Rob Nash.

Here is a look at Virginia’s results from the Midlands Championships:

157W	Paul Bjorlo (UVa) def. Brock Wittmeyer (Penn)		4-1W	Paul Bjorlo (UVa)def. Alex Grunder (Iowa)			8-4L	#1 Matt Gentry (Stanford) def. Paul Bjorlo (UVa)		11-4Next Match: Paul Bjorlo (UVa) vs. #11 Mike Kimberlin (Northwestern)

174L Dan Waters (American) def. Rocco Caponi (UVa) MD, 11-1W Rocco Caponi (UVa) def. Rob Nash (Triton) MD, 13-0

— UVa —