Wrestlers win Ivy championship

Occasionally, when a team seems to be running on all cylinders and everything is going its way, adversity will rear its ugly head and serve to bring the team back to earth. This is exactly what happened to the Penn wrestling team this weekend as it hit a stumbling block in the quest for a school-record 18th win. The Quakers (16-5) traveled to East Stroudsburg and had a disappointing showing. Despite crushing Princeton to formally clinch the Ivy League title and defeating Franklin & Marshall, Penn suffered from lack of motivation in dropping a 25-12 decision to the East Stroudsburg Warriors. The Quaker-Warrior matchup was the marquee event of the evening. Both schools were looking for school records for wins in a season, and the memory of Penn's 32-7 victory a year ago served as added motivation for both teams. But in the end, the battle wasn't as heated as had been anticipated, and the Quakers struggled to win only three of the 10 matches. "East Stroudsburg was definitely gunning for us," Penn junior tri-captain Brian Butler said. "If you focus on somebody, you're going to wrestle better than ever and we were their focus. We were the highlight of their season -- beating us was what they wanted. Plain and simple, we're a better team than they are and it's our fault. It was definitely a mental lapse." Despite the difficult nature of the defeat and the fact it came so late in the season, the Quakers feel they can take something positive out of the weekend. Both Butler and fellow tri-captain Gary Baker wrestled well enough to pull out victories at East Stroudsburg, providing an example for their Penn teammates. Also, this loss may serve as a wake up call for Penn -- which was cruising along to one of its best seasons in years -- that success doesn't come easily, and the better you are the harder you have to try to stay at the top. The Quakers know it's better they receive this message now, than in two weeks at Easterns. "It's going to help our team a lot," Baker said. "For a while, we lost our focus, and this put us back on track. People were perhaps taking things for granted. Getting [beat] like this can always put you back in line. We learned our lesson, and come Easterns, I think we'll show that we are the better team." The Quakers come back next week with a home meet against Wilkes and Coppin State. With Easterns looming in two weeks, there is some danger of looking ahead to the more important of the two meets. However, after this weekend's gut check, Penn does not want to be sidetracked again, and looks to be more intense than ever. The Quakers want to prove their season has not been a fluke, and the East Stroudsburg loss was an aberration rather than a sign of things to come. "Today, coach [Roger Reina] set us down and refocused us," freshman 167-pounder Brandon Slay said. "We're not going to look past next week. We're going to wrestle to the best of our capabilities. We have to focus on our goals and step it up and work harder."