Wrestlers shine, team suffers at Midlands

Men's wrestling team was disappointed by a dismal opening day in Chicago. Winter break arrived for the Penn wrestling team with many questions still lingering. Would Penn finally assert itself against the nation's wrestling elite? Would the Quakers' top wrestlers continue their standout seasons? Would the youthful core of the team step up to meet the challenge of being on a top-ranked wrestling squad? A tough road swing, with stops in Chicago for the Midlands, in Reno for the Tournament of Champions and at Stanford for a dual meet gave the Quakers a chance to prove their mettle against the nation's best. Penn rang in the New Year at the Midlands Open Tournament, held at Northwestern University December 30-31. The Quakers hoped to use the Midlands as a gauge for their place among the powerhouse wrestling schools, facing No. 2 Iowa as well as nationally respected Illinois, Oregon and Iowa State. Entering the tournament with four ranked wrestlers, Penn finished a disappointing eighth, due largely to an awful showing in the final consolation round Dec. 30. The day's competition lasted well into the midnight hour. Of the six wrestlers on the mat in the final round of matches that day, only one, freshman Yoshi Nakamura, advanced. The five losses hurt Penn's team score drastically. Instead of sending eight wrestlers -- almost half the team -- into action in the placing rounds on Dec. 31, Penn was left with three--Nakamura, senior Steve Walker and senior captain Brandon Slay. Even though the wrestlers had to wrestle up to five matches the first day and finish their last matches at around 12:30 in the morning, Penn coach Roger Reina was quick to dismiss the length of the day as a reason for the consolation round collapse. "The other guys are wrestling just as much," Reina said. "Everybody wrestles the same number of rounds, so that's not really any excuse." Rather, Reina cited individual differences for each defeat: inexperience in the case of freshman Justin Bravo (118 pounds); the inability of senior captain Mark Piotrowsky (134) to rebound from a tough 6-4 loss to rival Dustin DeNunzio of Harvard; a lack of increased intensity from Mike Fickell (177); and a technical mistake by heavyweight Bandele Adeniyi-Bada. Also falling in the damaging round was senior captain Andrei Rodzianko (190), who saw his first action in nine months after coming back from an injury. "It takes a while to get back into it," Rodzianko said. "Not competing in nine months definitely had an impact." The five losses in the consolation round not only hurt the team's score at the Midlands, but also denied many Penn wrestlers a chance to compete against some top-ranked opponents Penn hopes to see at the National Dual Meets and the NCAA Championships. "When we go to Nationals, we have to be able to perform in every round," Slay said. "We can't wrestle like that and be a top-10 team; It's not going to happen." The three bright spots for the Quakers at the Midlands were Walker, who placed fifth, Nakamura, who placed fifth, and Slay, who placed second. No. 3 ranked Steve Walker continued his outstanding year in the 126-pound weight class, finishing fifth after a victory at the Penn State Open. Walker lost his semifinal match against No. 2-ranked Dwight Hinson of Iowa State, and then lost his first consolation match to No. 4-ranked Doug Schwab of Iowa. Walker came out more physical in his last match, controlling Oregon's David Perkins for most of the match en route to an 11-7 triumph. Nakamura entered his first Midlands unranked, but with promising showings at previous tournaments, including a fifth place finish at the Keystone Classic and an eighth place result at the Penn State Open. Knocked down to the consolation bracket with a loss in the quarterfinals, Nakamura worked his way back to put himself in a position to enter the third-place match. Facing North Carolina's John Marc Bentley, Nakamura made what appeared to be a successful takedown with ten seconds remaining in the match. The two points would have put Nakamura up 3-2. The referee, however, judged that Nakamura did not have control and did not award the points, enabling Bentley to take the match 2-1. Nakamura came back from the difficult loss to beat Tracy Brown of Arizona State 6-5 to take fifth, himself withstanding a late-match charge from Brown. "I should have taken the ref out of the match," said Nakamura. "I shouldn't have let the match be that close." His teammate Walker, for one, was not surprised by the freshman's success at the Midlands. "He can place here," Walker said. "I think he got ripped off in the earlier match, but he's tough." Slay, ranked No. 3 at the Midlands, wrestled his way past No. 2 Casey Strand of Arizona State, who defeated Slay in the finals last year, to get into the finals with Iowa's top-ranked Joe Williams. The match was close throughout, but Williams took a 5-1 lead on two successive takedowns. A stalling call and an escape made the final score 5-3 in favor of Williams, whose quickness did Slay in. "I got second here last year, so anything second or below was not acceptable [for me]," said Slay, who dropped from the 177-pound division to 167 pounds at the Midlands. "Those were two of the fastest shots anybody has ever taken on me." Reina saw the match as a preview of things to come. "They are two of the very best wrestlers in the country," Reina said. "Hopefully they'll have the chance to decide who's the best in the finals of the NCAAs." Overall, Penn hoped to make a stronger statement than eighth at Midlands. "We could have done better," Walker said. "We could have had a lot more placers, but the only thing we can do is just learn from it." The Quakers had to learn quickly, as they were set to face No. 1 Oklahoma State in Reno January 4.

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