Wrestling and Fencing make strong NCAA showing

Penn sent five wrestlers to the NCAA finals, where early round losses left the team in 27th place. Sometimes the breaks just don't go your way. The Quakers, led by senior captain Brandon Slay's second-place finish in the 167 pound division, finished 27th at the NCAA Championships. Penn finished below their lofty goal of placing in the top 10 at Cleveland State University. That finish, however, did not indicate the level at which the Quakers wrestled. The brackets were vicious to Penn. Four out of the five Penn representatives at the NCAAs were defeated by wrestlers who went on to place in the top eight; the other, junior captain Mark Piotrowsky, lost to the ninth-and 10th-ranked wrestlers in the nation. Penn senior Steve Walker (126 pounds), who had amassed a 26-6 record and was ranked No. 20 in the country, got off on the wrong foot Thursday in his first round matchup against West Virginia's Bob Patensky. Walker, the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) champ, lost a tight 3-2 decision in his first appearance at Nationals. The bout had its share of controversy as well as good wrestling. After an injury stoppage in the third period, the match timekeepers mistakenly resumed the bout with injury time still running instead of resuming the official match time. "They lost the correct match time and tried to reconstruct it as best they could," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "We didn't feel they reconstructed it accurately." After Patensky held on to win, Penn protested the result, but to no avail. His protest denied, Walker moved down to the consolation brackets to face Carl Perry of Illinois. Perry, who placed sixth overall at Nationals, beat the frustrated Walker, 6-1. The second time around at NCAAs brought some improvements for Piotrowsky (134). Competing for the first time at NCAAs last year, Piotrowsky did not win a match. This time around, he won two bouts before falling to nationally respected wrestlers. After handling Rafael Vega of Edinboro in the first round, Piotrowsky met No. 9 Jamill Kelly of top-ranked Oklahoma State. He had been major decisioned by Kelly at the Reno Tournament of Champions, but fell by score of just 8-5 this time around. "I was down by one with :30 left, so I had to try to go for anything," Piotrowsky said. "I pushed for the takedown, but he ended up getting it." Piotrowsky then entered the wrestleback bracket and beat familiar face Jason Mutarelli of Virginia, whom he had beaten twice before this year. Another upset pit Piotrowsky against 10th seed Mike Mendoza of Cal State Bakersfield, who ended Piotrowsky's run with an 11-3 victory. Freshman Rick Springman (158) probably will not soon forget his first NCAA tournament. In his first match he lost 6-3 to Central Michigan's Ryan Cunningham, who went on to place fourth in the nation. "He gave the kid a lot more trouble than what he was expecting," Reina said. "If one or two situations were different he could have come out on top." An upset in another first round match put the 11th seed, Sam Kline of West Virginia, into a consolation bracket match with Springman. Kline had beaten Springman 15-5 earlier in the year, but Springman fell this time, 6-4. Junior captain Andrei Rodzianko (190), like Piotrowsky, suffered two quick losses in his first NCAA Tournament last year. But, like Piotrowsky, he rebounded this year with two victories before he bowed out. The critical point in the tourney for the 10th-seeded Rodzianko came in his second round loss to Northwestern's Sam Neider. The match went into overtime, but Neider scored first in sudden death to take the bout 6-4. "I think if things would have went the other way [in sudden death], who knows what would have happened," Rodzianko said. But with the loss, Rodzianko fell to the consolation rounds, where he avenged an EIWA Championship loss to Cornell's Joel Holman and lost to Oklahoma's Orville Palmer. Neider went on to finish fifth in the country. The main event for Penn, however, was All-Everything Slay in the 167 pound division. Slay was seeded third going into the competition, but got to the finals last year and has competed at the NCAAs in all four of his years at Penn. Slay had a tough draw, facing three opponents from the wrestling powerhouse Big Ten conference in his first three rounds. He dispatched Ben King of Illinois 8-4 and Will Hill of Michigan State 6-4 to get into the quarterfinals, where he met Northwestern's No. 6 Mark Bybee. As tough as it is to wrestle one opponent, for most of the match it appeared to Slay that he had to wrestle two. Early in the match, Slay took a knee to the eye from Bybee. The blow jarred him so much that he suffered from spells of double vision throughout the match. "I couldn't see straight, my whole head was in a haze and I was having problems focusing in," Slay said. "But luckily, in the heat of the battle, your adrenaline is going, and? I tried to keep my head on straight, finish the match hard and get the win." Although Slay still has pain in his right eyeball, he said that his vision was restored in time for his semifinal match against No. 2 Mark Smith of Oklahoma State. Slay, in high school and college, had never beaten Smith in three attempts. Slay, driven by his quest for a title, his past record against Smith and even the crowd, wrestled past Smith 5-3.The large amount of Iowa fans in the crowd wanted to see Slay upset the Oklahoma State wrestler, because an Oklahoma State victory would have put the Cowboys ahead of Iowa in the team point totals. "The whole place was going crazy [after I won]," Slay said. "It was an exceptional feeling -- something I'll never forget." But Slay's euphoria was unfortunately short-lived. In the finals he was slated to face Iowa's No. 1 Joe Williams, who had lost once in the past two years and was the two-time defending 158-pound national champion. In two previous meetings this year, Williams had bested Slay 5-3. "I wasn't that nervous because a lot of the pressure had been taken off my shoulders," Slay said. Williams, one of the best counter-attackers in wrestling, forced Slay into pressing on some shots, which Williams converted into takedowns. "Williams put on some of the most impressive counter-attacks that I've ever seen," Reina said. After the 7-4 defeat, Slay described the feeling as "heartbreak." "When it was over and I realized [a championship] wasn't going to happen, that I was going to be second on the podium, it was really an emotional point in time in my career. "It was hard to swallow." Slay can take solace in the fact that between his two finals opponents, Mark Branch of Oklahoma State last year and Williams, are five national titles and eight All-American awards. While the brackets and Joe Williams were unkind to Penn at the NCAA Tournament, the future may not be so rough. In what many thought was going to be a rebuilding year for the Quakers, they sent five wrestlers to Nationals, three of whom will be back to lead Penn next year.

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