By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

Edinboro University coach Tim Flynn stresses to recruits that their Pennsylvania campus is a great place to win an NCAA title.

“You don’t go to Edinboro to party,” said Deonte Penn, one of three All-Americans produced by the small school in northwest Pennsylvania. ‘You come to win. It’s a dry campus and there is no drinking on campus. You come to train and win.”

Teammate Gregor Gillespie put an exclamation mark on the statement when the true sophomore beat the hometown favorite — Michigan’s Josh Churella, 3-1, in sudden victory — to capture just the third Div. I championship by this school.

Gillespie joins Sean O’Day, who won the 134-pound championship in 1989, and Josh Koscheck, the 174-pound titlist in 2001, as Edinboro’s lone Division I champions.

“To have a Division I national champion at a Division II institution other than wrestling, it’s just unbelievable,” said Edinboro coach Tim Flynn, now in his tenth year at Edinboro. “We try to sell kids on the idea that you can get it done here. But it’s a lot easier when you can see look he did it and about five or six years ago, Josh Koshchek did it. So when you recruit guys, you can show them the guys that did it. And it just helps in that recruiting war.”

Fighting Scot wrestlers can always head up to Erie, Pa. — located just 25 miles north of the university — if they are looking for entertainment. But that wasn’t on Gillespie’s mind this season as he led his team to a No. nine finish in Auburn Hills.

“If you want to be a national champ, it’s the perfect environment to do it,” said Gillespie, a native of Webster, N.Y., where he was a two-time New York state high school champion and compiled a 238-14 career record. “You can’t go out and get in trouble every night of the week like you can with a Big Ten school. We only have 7,000 students. It’s not a place where you go out and party.

“I remember when I came on my recruiting trip and (Flynn) told me that the big fancy weight rooms is not what wins national championships. It’s grinding it out in there. Edinboro is the perfect environment to do it.”

“There are good coaches everywhere and some kids are choosing a smaller environment,” said Flynn, now in his tenth year at Edinboro. “The smaller class sizes makes it easier for some students. I went to Penn State and didn’t know any of my teachers, except for my senior year, who knew my name. Everyone on (the Edinboro) campus knows who (Gillespie) is.”

Most wrestling fans outside of Pennsylvania and the Eastern Wrestling League didn’t have Gillespie penciled in as a favorite to win it, even though he earned All-American honors (seventh) last year.

“I had a few rough matches this year but I wasn’t unknown,” said Gillespie, who improved his record to 34-3 after winning five straight bouts in Auburn Hills, including a 3-2 upset of Minnesota’s defending national champ Dustin Schlatter in the semis; ending the Gopher’s 65-match winning streak.  “Maybe I was an underdog especially behind Schlatter; maybe overlooked.  It doesn’t bother me at all.”

Gillespie also didn’t look too bothered when Michigan’s Churella — who won three Michigan state high school championships in The Palace — appeared to get in on a deep shot against the Fighting Scot early in the sudden victory period after both wrestlers exchanged escapes in regulation.

But the official did not give the Wolverine a quick takedown, which allowed Gillespie to come around for the deciding points.

“I’m pretty sure if he had given that quick two it would’ve been all over,” said Gillespie. 

“Obviously, I’m thankful he did give us the time because I ended up working my way out of that.”

It may have been Gillespie’s first NCAA final. But the Fighting Scot’s focus was on nothing but wrestling.
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