2001 NCAA Finals - Tirapelle vs. Esposito

March 17, 2001 -- The 2001 NCAA Championship Wrestling Final between senior, #4 seed Dave Esposito (Lehigh) and senior, #3 seed Adam Tirapelle (Illinois) in Iowa City, IA. Tirapelle defeated Esposito earlier in the year in the finals of the Las Vegas Invitational 6-2.
Dave and I had wrestled 3 times prior to the NCAA final. As a sophomore, I was losing pretty good and caught him on his back to tie the match up and I won in overtime. I won the last two, as a junior at the All-Star dual and as a senior at Las Vegas, fairly convincingly. Thus, he came out in this match with a different strategy and it threw me off for the first 2 minutes or so.
Winning the NCAA was an incredible feeling, almost surreal as all the time and effort you put in just rushes through your mind instantly. I have told people that I always had wanted to be an NCAA Champion, and I believed I would be, but it was SO MUCH harder than I had ever imagined.