Wrestling seeks a ranking

The Penn wrestling team is rapidly closing in on its goal of becoming a top-20 Division I team. After finishing seventh at the highly competitive Virginia Duals and first at the Millersville Tournament, the nation's wrestling eyes have begun to focus on the Quakers. Penn received votes in the Amateur Wrestling News Top 25 and was ranked No. 21 in Wrestling Institute Newsmagazine. The Quakers (3-2, 0-0 EIWA) will have a chance to move up further in the rankings this weekend when they face Navy and Bucknell at Annapolis, Md. "Rankings are simply a midseason guess of where teams are," said coach Roger Reina, who captured his 100th career win at the Virginia Duals. "From the standpoint that people outside of our program are recognizing our accomplishments and ability, rankings can be flattering. "But we still have a lot of work to do to accomplish the things we set out for ourselves. The thing we can't afford to do is rely on the rankings. We can't buy into them and give them more weight than what they deserve." If the Quakers are going to impress the voters, they will need a strong performance against the Midshipmen, who were the runners-up at the Easterns a year ago. Navy also received votes in the most recent Amateur Wrestling News Top 25. "Navy is a big challenge," senior co-captain Brian Butler said. "They're going to come at us tooth and nail. It's going to be a definite fight. It's going to be a scrap. There is going to be blood." Butler was clearly more concerned with his upcoming matches than the team's ranking. He has his eyes set on a grander prize than an occasional sighting in the top 25. "It's nice, but it really doesn't mean anything for me," Butler said. "If we're top 20, top 25 at the end of the year, then we have done our job. It's nice that someone recognizes that we're coming up, but people across the nation aren't saying we're a top-20 team. That's the programmatic goal -- to be a top-20 team, year in and year out."