The Penn wrestling team is reloading with more talent.

Its lonely at the top. The Penn wrestling team is in the midst of establishing a tradition of excellence at both the regional and national level. The Quakers, whose season gets under way this Saturday, have been Ivy League champions for four of the past five seasons and have won a record three straight EIWA crowns. "There are basically two dynamics going on," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "One is that a lot of teams are hungry to prove that they can beat us. The other is that we're working really hard to spread the gap between our team and the rest of the competition." The Red and Blue ended the 1997-'98 season with a No. 13 NCCA national dual meet ranking, its highest ever. Last season also produced five NCAA qualifiers for the Quakers. "We have to pay attention to the little things and stay focused throughout the whole year," senior tri-captain Mark Piotrowsky said. "Our final goal is to crack the top ten." · The Opening Tournament Cornell will host the Ivy League Kickoff Classic this Saturday. The tournament will bring together all six Ivy League schools with varsity wrestling programs. Yale and Dartmouth, which field only club teams, have also been invited to enter. "Regardless of who you're competing against, you should always be firing on all cylinders," junior tri-captain Brett Matter said. "This is our chance to translate what we've been doing in the room into success in competition." Reina recognizes that his team trains not just with regional rivals in mind. Rather, the Quakers train so that they can prepare for the national elite. "We still can't afford not to put forth our best effort in the first tournament," Reina said. In one set of preseason rankings, Matter (149 lbs.) is one of seven Penn wrestlers touted as one of the top 20 in their respective weight classes. His No. 5 rank equals senior tri-captain Andrei Rodzianko (197) for the highest on the team. "This is the most highly regarded we've been in the preseason rankings, but it doesn't mean anything unless we start performing," Reina said. The Quakers will send a group of 30 to Ithaca this Saturday, where they will be the consensus favorite. Still, without exception, there is an Ivy opponent in each of the ten weight classes that has the potential to out-wrestle every member of the Quakers. "I do not plan to lose," Matter said. The tournament promises to yield a myriad of captivating matches. Perhaps most hotly-contested will be the potential showdown between Piotrowsky and Dustin DeNunzio of Harvard, the pre-season Ivy and EIWA favorite. Piotrowsky has never bested the Crimson 141-pounder, but hopes Saturday will be different. · The Ivy League Of the six varsity programs in the Ancient Eight, Cornell and Harvard will probably pose the most consequential threat to the Quakers' reign over the conference. "Cornell is almost definitely our toughest competition," Reina said. "We have beaten them in dual meets four of the last five years, but we still need to push ourselves against them." In the pre-season EIWA rankings, Cornell is No. 2 behind the Quakers. Four of their ten varsity wrestlers have higher ratings than Penn's top 10. Nate Rupp (133) and Seth Charles (285) are touted as the cream of the Ivy crop. "We know we have the talent to beat every team this weekend," Reina said. "My staff and I feel that we have this team right where we want to be." Led by DeNunzio, Joey Killar (165) and Francis Volpe (184), Harvard also appears poised to make waves in the region. "We're very confident about the tournament," Piotrowsky said. We're going to be much closer to knowing where we are at this point." · The Recruits Both Cornell and Harvard were able to piece together recruiting classes for this year that were, according to national rankings, more impressive than Penn's. "First, we were coming of a class last year that was very highly-ranked," Reina said. "These recruits are not really the big names, but it's a small class that helps fill in very specific holes." Most illustrious among the freshmen is Kevin Rucci from Voorhees, New Jersey. The 125-pounder was a state champion and an All-American in high school. Rucci will complement sophomore Justin Bravo in his weight class. Richard Wilson is another high-profile recruit, but the Michigan 197-lb. high school champion is currently sidelined as he recovers from arthroscopic surgery. "Another guy who's really performing well but wasn't a big name out of high school is Craig Melcher," Reina said. After last season, the Quakers lost their top man Brandon Slay, a two-time NCAA finalist among other key performers. Still, the Penn wrestlers are a youthful and talented group whose love for the sport can be seen in their commitment to train. "We can do all the work in the world in the room we want," Matter said. "But we need to start taking care of business this weekend.