Wrestlers see solid results at Penn State

The Penn wrestling team posted a solid showing at Saturday's Penn State Open, placing four wrestlers in the top six in their respective weight classes. The Open, which included 34 teams and numerous other post-collegiate wrestlers, had no official scoring. Each weight class had anywhere from 30 to 46 competitors, and most of the weight classes included returning NCAA all-Americans and champions. Co-captain Brian Eveleth led the Penn effort, placing third at 126 pounds. After losing by a point in the quarterfinals, Eveleth won two matches to reach the consolation finals. There he pinned Pittsburgh's Lee Schickel in sudden-death overtime to earn third place and bring his season record to 9-1. "Brian has shown a lot of poise in his close matches," Penn coach Roger Reina said. Freshman Brett Matter (142) shocked the crowd by defeating top-seeded Zip Spencer, a post-graduate, in the second round 6-5. "I felt good when I was in the third period, and I kept wrestling hard and eventually he broke," Matter said about his match against Spencer. "It was a good test for me." After losing in the quarterfinals, Matter wrestled back to earn fifth place. The other two Penn wrestlers to place were second-stringers who bested the performances of their first-string counterparts. Sean O'Hara (134) placed fifth for the Quakers after being the only Penn wrestler to reach the semifinal round. And Randall Braunfeld (118) placed sixth, losing 2-1 to eventual champion Dennis Kitko of Cornell in the quarterfinals. "I think it was a mixed bag," said Reina. "Early in the tournament we had some real tremendous performances, and we had eight quarterfinalists. But we went one-for-eight in the quarters, and three of those losses were by one point. "We were losing some very close matches, and that was the disappointing side of things. But it's the time of year where we can take some hard lessons learned in competition and take them back to the room and work on strategy and technique that will help us come February and March." The absence of two of the team's stars, senior Joey Allen (275) and junior co-captain Clinton Matter (177), played a major part in the Quakers' mediocre showing. Allen recently completed football season and will not be in shape to wrestle until at least late December. Matter, who placed second at last year's Penn State Open and would have been the favorite to win his weight class this year, missed the tournament with an injury. Reina declined to comment on the nature of the injury. "A lot of the kids on the team were disappointed with how they wrestled," said Brett Matter. "But we still opened some eyes."