Wrestling close to cinching crown

After beating Cornell, the East's No. 2 team, Penn, is tops in the Ivies. At the first Ivy League wrestling meet of the season, Penn took a giant step toward an Ivy championship in front of 1,500 screaming Cornell fans. Penn, the No. 1 team in the East, defeated the Big Red, the No. 2 Eastern squad, 24-15. In a two-hour grind that began at 9:30 p.m., the Quakers took control early in the dual meet with two wins by junior Ben Hatta and senior Steve Walker, giving Penn an early 6-0 lead. Next, in the anticipated matchup between Penn senior Sean O'Hara and Cornell's Carl Keske, ranked No. 2 and No. 1 in the East, respectively. Keske came out to an early 7-1 lead. Despite battling back, O'Hara lost 13-5 in a major decision. With Penn's lead cut to 6-4, Cornell decided to shift down its normal weight classes, a strategy that backfired, as the Quakers took the next two matches with sophomore Brett Matter prevailing 10-4 and senior Bart Murphy, who was tied with Mike Kail in last 30 seconds of the match, won 7-5. With the Quakers up 12-4, Penn tri-captain Josh Bailer found himself down 4-0 in the third period. In an upper body tie-up, Bailer went for a move, but he came down hard and suffered a concussion. His opponent, Jeff New, was then able to pin Bailer, giving Cornell six team points. With the match too close for comfort at 12-10, Penn tri-captain Brandon Slay at 167 pounds took to the mat and beat Cornell freshman Joe Tucceri in his debut by an 11-7 decision. In the 190-pound division, in a rematch of last year's Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships, Cornell's Joel Holman led early against Penn's Clint Matter, but the Quakers tri-captain battled back to win 9-4. Cornell, however, would not go down so easily as the No. 6 nationally ranked Carlos Eason defeated Penn freshman Mike Fickell, 21-4, by technical fall, gaining five points. With Penn up 18-15, the dual meet would be decided in the last round by the heavyweight matchup between Penn senior Joey Allen and his long-time rival Monty Cheff. Last year, Allen beat Cheff in double overtime, but lost to him at the EIWA Championships. In Allen's dual-match career, he has only lost once when the outcome of the match depended on him. The two heavyweights were conservative early on. Tied at 1-1 in the third period, both missed close scoring opportunities. Late in the period, Allen scored a takedown. Cheff, however, dislocated his elbow when he fell to the mat and had to default when Allen led 3-1, giving Penn the 24-15 final team victory. "I was really confident in myself," Allen said. "I'm kind of used to it now. We stepped up to the pressure in front of a hostile crowd." The team went on the next day to Columbia, where they dominated the Lions in a 35-2 blowout. "It was a very successful weekend," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "The team performed extremely well." The win over Columbia included three technical falls, and most of the Quakers held their opponents to scores of three points or less. "We were clearly the aggressors in both matches," Clint Matter said. Matter, who went 2-0 this weekend, will be honored tonight as the top male collegiate athlete in the area by the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association. He was also chosen as first alternate for the collegiate all-star match. Although Penn still has Harvard, Princeton and Brown on tap this weekend, the defending Ivy and EIWA champion Quakers appear to have already been crowned Ivy champs. "I think it's fair to say that we're the Ivy League champs," Matter said. "But we want to make sure that we are able to wrestle with intensity and focus with the rest of the them." Now ranked No. 15 in the nation -- the highest Penn has ever been ranked -- the Quakers have incredible momentum going into this weekend's home matches. "I think the team took another strong step in coming together in terms of developing chemistry and becoming a unit," Reina said. For Penn, momentum has been important. This weekend, they went 4-0 in the first two weight classes to start off both meets -- key wins that established momentum for the rest of the bouts. Also crucial is having a strong heavyweight to handle the pressure. "It's tough to be the first one to start the momentum for the team," Hatta said. "Joey [Allen] feels the same way when he has to close the match." "These are two intangibles in a dual meet that this team handled extremely well," Reina said. Now 2-0 in Ivy League competition, Penn will host this weekend's Ivy matches to decide the league champion. "There's no doubt in my mind that we'll win," Hatta said. "We're on our way to beating the rest of our competition for the rest of the season. Our main concern is winning Easterns and this weekend has been one stepping stone to achieving the goals we set from the beginning of the season."