WRESTLING: Quakers pin down EIWA title

For the first time in the 92-year history of the Eastern wrestling championships? For the Penn wrestling team, 92 years of frustration have come to an end. The Red and the Blue reigned victorious at the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships in Syracuse, N.Y., on March 8 and 9. The win marks the first time Penn has won the EIWA since the conference was formed in 1905. Penn dominated the 14-team tournament with a total of 144.5 team points, led by tournament champions Brett Matter (142 pounds), Josh Bailer (167 pounds) and Clinton Matter (177 pounds). Lehigh finished a distant second with 106.5 points, and Ivy League nemesis Cornell finished third with 92.5 points. "It was an exciting weekend for us," said Quakers coach Roger Reina, who was voted EIWA Coach of the Year by his peers. "It was one that the whole team went into very confident. We were the top-ranked team going into the tournament, and we proved it while we were there." Nine of Penn's 10 wrestlers placed in the top six in their respective weight classes, and a total of seven Quakers wrestlers qualified for next weekend's NCAA championships in Minneapolis, Minn. The top two finishers in each weight class at the EIWA tournament qualified for nationals, as did six wild-card wrestlers who were selected by a vote of the coaches at the conclusion of the tournament. Penn's seven national qualifiers are the most qualifiers to come out of an EIWA school since 1987. This year, only nine schools in the nation from other conferences qualified more than seven wrestlers for nationals. "We were clearly the best trained team at the tournament," Clinton Matter said. At the end of the first day of competition, Penn held a narrow two-point lead over the Engineers, who kept the tournament close by gathering numerous bonus points for pins and major decisions. Heading into the second day of wrestling, all 10 Quakers wrestlers were still alive for NCAA bids, and six had advanced to the semifinal round. Lehigh also had six wrestlers in the semis, but only one other Engineer was still alive in the consolation rounds. But Saturday saw the emergence of the Red and the Blue as the EIWA's top dog. "We just had a tremendous round Saturday morning," Reina said. The Quakers won nine of their first 10 bouts on Saturday, including all six of their semifinals matches. Ben Hatta (118), Mark Piotrowsky (134) and Joey Allen (275) advanced to the finals and received automatic NCAA bids, as did Bailer and the two Matter brothers. With six wrestlers in the finals, the four Quakers who had been eliminated from championship contention wrestled back in the consolation rounds in hopes of garnering a wild-card berth to nationals. Senior captain Brian Eveleth (126) became Penn's seventh qualifier by placing fourth in the tournament's deepest weight class, earning a wild-card berth. His two losses in the tournament both came to Harvard's Dustin DeNunzio, who took third. DeNunzio defeated Eveleth, 6-4, in the quarterfinals and won, 7-2, in the consolation finals. Andre Rodzianko, who placed fifth at 190 pounds, Ryan Slack, who placed sixth at 158 pounds and Alex Boisvert, who failed to place at 150 pounds, were the only Penn grapplers to not qualify for nationals. Hatta was the first Quaker to take the mat in the finals, but he lost a close 5-2 decision to Chris Madigan of East Stroudsburg. Piotrowsky fared no better in his championship match, falling 11-4 to the tournament's Outstanding Wrestler Award recipient, Carl Keske of Cornell. Penn garnered its first individual champion in the 142-pound weight class, where EIWA Freshman of the Year Brett Matter defeated Lehigh's Chris Ayres, 3-2. Matter's record stands at 31-2 heading into nationals, the best record of any wrestler in the conference. Bailer became the Quakers' second tournament champion of the night by upsetting Lehigh's Cory Brechbill, 3-2, to win the 167-pound championship. And Clinton Matter joined little brother Brett on the victory platform after decisioning Cornell's Joel Holman, 4-3, to win the 177-pound title. "I expected [Brett] to win the tournament, so I just had to keep up my end of the bargain," said Clinton Matter, whose father, Andy, was a three-time EIWA champion for Penn State from 1970-72. In the last final of the night, Allen fell, 7-3, to Cornell's Monty Cheff in the heavyweight bout. The Quakers, who are currently ranked No. 23 in the nation, are hoping to crack the top 20 at the NCAA championships, which will be held Thursday through Saturday. The top 32 Division I wrestlers in each weight class will compete for the national crown, with the top eight finishers at each weight earning All-American honors. "We've been preparing all year to go out there and wrestle in the NCAAs and wrestle like we belong there, because we do belong there," Bailer said. "We're not going to be awestruck when we go out there. We're going to be prepared, and we're going to be ready to wrestle."