Wrestling wins fourth title of '90s

The Penn wrestling team won its third consecutive Ivy League title with last Saturday's win over Princeton. Chalk up another one for the Penn wrestling team. With a 39-4 demolition of Princeton last Saturday, the No. 15 Quakers (14-3, 5-0) won a third consecutive Ivy League title and their fourth Ivy crown of the '90s. The win came with half of Penn's regular starters sitting out. As it turned out, the regulars' help was not really needed against the struggling Tigers, whose Ivy record now stands at a meager 1-5. The Princeton wrestling team -- which was slated to be cut by their Athletic Administration a few years ago -- did improve on last year's winless finish with a victory against Yale. "[Princeton] is starting to come back," junior captain Mark Piotrowsky said. "They had some good recruits -- their 126-pounder and [their 142-pounder] are pretty good." Nevertheless, Penn finished a perfect 5-0 Ivy League dual meet season in authoritative style. Penn dropped only one bout to the Tigers, Randall Braunfeld's 126-pound match, in which Braunfeld wrestled above his normal weight of 118 pounds. The Quakers also finished their dual meet season, during which they amassed a 14-3 record. Their only losses came against No. 1 Oklahoma State, No. 2 Iowa and No. 9 West Virginia. Junior Jason Nagle started the match emphatically for the Quakers, with a 15-2 major decision victory. Braunfeld then lost his bout, but Piotrowsky (134) regained the momentum for Penn with a pin in only 2 minutes, 51 seconds. Sophomore Jonathan Gough (142) took to the mats next, coming out the victor in the day's closest match with an 11-10 win over Jeffrey Bernd. "[Gough] made a couple of mistakes, he gave up? points right at the ends of periods," said Piotrowsky, the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) wrestler of the week. "But he learned from it. He just has to stay tough and keep scoring at the end of periods." Gough competed at 142 pounds in place of nationally-ranked No. 15 freshman Yoshi Nakamura, who is still bothered by an injury. Nakamura was at "90 percent" at match time, according to Penn coach Roger Reina, who decided not to let Nakamura wrestle. "We just felt like he just wasn't quite ready," Reina said. "While there would have been some benefit to him competing, it wasn't that important." The Quakers won the rest of their matches, highlighted by two pins by freshman Rick Springman (150) and senior Joe Malachowski (190). For Malachowski, the victory meant more than six team points. He ended his Penn dual meet career with a pin in just 1:28. "It's always good to leave on a high note," Malachowski said. "And a pin is the best way to do that." For the Quakers, the Princeton match was an excellent opportunity for more inexperienced wrestlers to gain match time rather than watch from the sidelines. "It's a good thing to get younger guys in and rest the guys that get in a lot," said sophomore Tim Ortman, who avenged a loss against Lehigh two weekends ago with a 8-1 victory last Saturday. "It's good to get them a chance and get them that experience, because down the road you're going to need them in those situations and they'll be ready," Ortman said. The three-peat is sweet for the Quakers, especially for the team's veterans. "I remember my freshman year, one of our big matches was [when] we shut out Rutgers," Piotrowsky said. "And now, going from Rutgers to wrestling No. 1 Oklahoma State or No. 2 Iowa -- it's a huge jump." After clobbering the rebuilding Tigers in their final dual match of the season, the Quakers have to switch gears quickly. The EIWA Championships, held March 6-7 at Lehigh, loom on the horizon for Penn. Penn will have to re-encounter all its top Ivy foes -- Harvard, Cornell and Brown, in addition to Eastern powers Lehigh, Army and Navy. But the Quakers have the utmost confidence in themselves after pulverizing Princeton last Saturday. "We went in and showed that we just dominated Princeton," Piotrowsky said. "We're using this momentum to go into the Easterns so we can open the gap between us and the Ivy League and all the Eastern teams. "We've beaten them already, but we want to beat them worse in the Easterns."

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