No. 18 Wrestling takes on Princeton

Does this sound familiar? A Penn athletic team heads to Princeton for an important contest with Ivy League ramifications. Except this time, it is the Quakers who are the nationally ranked team and if Princeton wins, that would be the upset. The Penn wrestling team heads to Princeton Saturday for its last dual meet of the season. The Quakers head into New Jersey huge favorites over the hapless Tigers, who have defeated one Ivy League opponent in two years. The Quakers are 4-0 in the Ivy League and have all but wrapped up a third straight Ivy League title and a fourth in the last five years. A win at Princeton would seal it. The Tigers are trying to rebuild their program after the Princeton athletic administration threatened to cut wrestling to comply with Title IX regulations. The program never was cut, but recruiting was hindered greatly by the threat of extinction. This year's freshman class is Princeton's top recruiting class since the Title IX squabble. Penn, ranked No. 1 in the EIWA after its drubbing of Lehigh last weekend at the Palestra, has the utmost confidence going into Saturday's competition. "[Princeton] shouldn't really pose a problem at all for us," said junior captain Andrei Rodzianko, who will sit out the 190-pound bout to make way for senior Joe Malachowski. "We're not even sending our full starting lineup, which is good for a lot of the other guys on the team." Senior captain Brandon Slay will also take the weekend off from competition. Wrestlers are limited to a certain number of matches, and Slay participated in the National All-Star meet earlier this month, so he has to watch from the sidelines at Princeton. Penn probably will not need Slay or Rodzianko's services Saturday against Princeton. As Rodzianko said, "Teams that we've crushed have crushed them." But the Quakers are not overlooking Princeton, said sophomore Tim Ortman, who is looking to make up for a loss against Lehigh with a victory Saturday at 150 pounds. "You can't look past anybody, that's the rule in all of sports," Ortman said. "As a team, we just want to finish the year off right and win the Ivy title." Freshman standout Yoshi Nakamura, ranked No. 15 in the nation at 142 pounds, may return from an injury to compete at Princeton. According to Penn coach Roger Reina, Nakamura is at "90 percent," and whether he wrestles will be a gameday decision. Reina said that his Quakers appear to be peaking at the right time of the year, heading into the postseason. "I think that the trend is definitely going in the right direction, but there are no guarantees," he said. That is bad news for the toothless Tigers, who are 1-3 in the Ivy League. At least one Penn team may come home from Princeton with a win.

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