Jeff Chaney
Sports Scene
Cam Simaz’s decision was made when he stepped onto the mat January 8.
The Cornell University 197-pound senior suffered a severe left hamstring pull during the Body Bar Invitational in November and spent the next month rehabbing the injury.
Simaz could have shut down his season, red-shirted, and come back next year healthy to try and win an elusive national championship for himself and his team.
That decision needed to be made before Cornell and Lehigh University wrestled January 8 at Newman Arena.
“I talked to the coaches,my family, and our trainer, and he [Cornell trainer Chris Scarlatta] was straight forward with me,” said Simaz, a three-time state champion for Allegan High School. “He said how I recover will tell us a lot. If I get back and feel great, then I would be good to go. I trained as hard as I could with Chris, he told me to go as hard as I could, and if I tweaked it, we would call it a year. I made it through without tweaking it too bad.”
So Simaz stepped onto the mat against Lehigh’s Kadeem Samuels, and he beat him 10-2 to improve his record to 13-2 this year.
Simaz, a three-time All-American for the Big Red, including a pair of third-place finishes the past two seasons, is still the top-ranked wrestler in his weight class, even with the injury.
“Honestly, the hamstring felt fine,” Simaz said. “He wrestled me well, but I wasn’t satisfied with the way I wrestled; 10 points wasn’t enough. But the hamstring was fine.”
Now Simaz, who cannot now red-shirt, looks forward to winning that national championship in March in St. Louis.
“I’m going for it now,” Simaz said. “My opportunity is now gone to red-shirt, so we’re going to go for it and hope to win a a national title.”
Simaz is not concerned that his hamstring will act up and prevent a title run. “In this sport, you don’t have a lot of room to worry about it,” he said. “If you do that, you are not doing what you should, going hard. I don’t want to worry about this being my last year and getting hurt, because there is life after wrestling.
“At this point, more than anything in the world I want to win that title,” he added. “But I need to keep that in perspective.”