{"id":58,"date":"2004-12-17T07:22:08","date_gmt":"2004-12-17T13:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/?p=58"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T05:00:00","slug":"ny-state-champ-lucas-chooses-hofstra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/w58\/ny-state-champ-lucas-chooses-hofstra\/","title":{"rendered":"NY State Champ Lucas Chooses Hofstra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.newsday.com\/sports\/highschool\/longisland\/ny- <br \/>sklucas164086314dec16,0,6007619.story?coll=ny-li-hsports-print<\/p>\n<p>State champ Lucas decides on Hofstra<\/p>\n<p>BY GREGG SARRA<br \/>STAFF WRITER<\/p>\n<p>December 16, 2004<\/p>\n<p>The decision, like his takedowns, came easily for Alton Lucas, the  <br \/>area&#8217;s most highly recruited wrestler since four-time state champion  <br \/>Jesse Jantzen.<\/p>\n<p>Lucas, a state wrestling champion and All-Long Island football player  <br \/>from West Babylon, has accepted a full scholarship to wrestle at  <br \/>Hofstra. He also plans to play football. The 152-pound defending  <br \/>Division I state champ chose No. 8 Hofstra over No. 4 Nebraska and a  <br \/>host of other Division I programs.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;We didn&#8217;t let this one slip away from Long Island, &#8220;Hofstra coach Tom  <br \/>Ryan said. &#8220;Lucas is an incredible athlete with great balance, skill,  <br \/>flexibility, power and quickness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lucas has won five national titles in the past two years. His talent  <br \/>draws comparisons to Jantzen, a 2000 Shoreham-Wading River graduate who  <br \/>became a three-time All-American at Harvard. Jantzen won the NCAA  <br \/>Division I title at 149 pounds as a senior in March.<\/p>\n<p>  Lucas, 5-8, 180 pounds, had a 43-2 record as a junior, losing twice in  <br \/>the Beast of the East tournament in Delaware, before winning the state  <br \/>championship in Buffalo. He was a state runner-up as a sophomore. Lucas  <br \/>currently is ranked second in the country at 160 pounds by the Intermat  <br \/>and Amateur Wrestling News.<\/p>\n<p>Lucas will have the opportunity to work out with two-time national  <br \/>champion Donny Pritzlaff of Wisconsin in the Hofstra wrestling room.  <br \/>Pritzlaff, a two-year Hofstra assistant coach, is training for the 2008  <br \/>Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pritzlaff gives Alton a built-in workout partner during practice, &#8221; <br \/>Ryan said. &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing better than that kind of on-the-mat  <br \/>training.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.newsday.com\/sports\/highschool\/longisland\/ny- sklucas164086314dec16,0,6007619.story?coll=ny-li-hsports-print State champ Lucas decides on Hofstra BY GREGG SARRASTAFF WRITER December 16, 2004 The decision, like his takedowns, came easily for Alton Lucas, the area&#8217;s most highly recruited wrestler since four-time state champion Jesse Jantzen. Lucas, a state wrestling champion and All-Long Island football player from West Babylon, has accepted a full scholarship [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}