The Eastern Wrestling League’s Wrestler of the Week for the week ended December 22, 2002, is Edinboro University’s David Shunamon. David is a senior out of Massachusetts.

Head coach Tim Flynn is proud of his young Edinboro squad. Flynn, noted, however, that their early season performances remind him of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," because sometimes they’re bad and sometimes they’re good. Flynn’s Fighting Scots gave one of their best performances of the season last week, finishing runnerup to top ranked Oklahoma State in the Reno Tournament held December 19 in Nevada. At Reno Edinboro finished ahead of 20 other teams, including nationally ranked Arizona State, Boise State, Kent State, the University of Oregon and North Carolina.

Shunamon led the Edinboro charge at Reno, racking up a perfect 5-0 record. In the first round Shunamon hammered his Oregon opponent 14-2, then whomped his Cal-Davis foe 14-5, followed by a 9-5 win over Ben Rings of Kent State in the quarter finals and a 11-3 major over David Dashiell of North Carolina in the semis. That set up the 197-pound championship bout against undefeated, top-seeded Muhammed Lawal of Oklahoma State. Lawal, by the way, enjoys a top 3 national ranking in numerous Division I polls.

Shunamon and Lawal went through the regulation and overtime periods tied at 1-1. Each wrestler had gotten off at least one good takedown attempt, but neither was able to score the two-point move. Shunamon won the tiebreaker coin toss, selected bottom, and the rest, as they say, is history. Flynn described Shunamon’s escape for the 2-1 victory as Shunamon standing up hard on the whistle, Lawal bringing him back to the mat, attempting to ride David out with a crab, but from the mat Shunamon turned in for the escape.

The Reno championship win over Mr. Lawal brought David Shunamon’s current-season record to an impressive 22-3. Also, that was win number 100 for Mr. Shunamon during his college career.

Congratulations to David Shumamon, our Eastern Wrestling League’s Wrestler of the Week!

Also, we tip our EWL headgear to Bloomsburg University senior Hunter Guenot. This past week at The Beast’s inaugural collegiate tournament (held at the University of Delaware), Mr. Guenot grabbed the 174-pound crown with a 4-3 final’s win over Buffalo’s Gary Cooper. Good job Mr. Guenot!

Come on out and support your favorite college wrestling team this week. America needs wrestling and wrestlers. Thank you.