Wrestling sees intense attitude as 'Key' to win

Wrestling coach Roger Reina expects more fire from his team at home. While the athletes of preseason No. 11 Rider and No. 12 Arizona State get ready for their trip to West Philadelphia to compete in Sunday's Keystone Classic, the No. 17 Penn wrestling team is preparing itself to not make a repeat of last weekend's disappointing loss to Harvard in the Ivy League Kickoff Classic. Through the past week of practice, Penn coach Roger Reina has worked with his squad on one of the major problems he saw during the Ivy Classic -- a lack of a full effort from each member of the team. "One of our faults last weekend was that we didn't have intensity in every weight class throughout the whole tournament," Reina said. "Our team's responded well [in practice], and we've had better intensity this week in preparation" Now the question is if the Quakers can harness this newfound intensity against the six quality teams invited to the Palestra Sunday, and perhaps win their fourth Keystone Classic team title in a row. The Quakers' best hopes for big contributions toward this four-peat come from top seeds Mark Piotrowski (141 pounds), Brett Matter (149) and Yoshi Nakamura (157). Sophomores Justin Bravo (125) and Rick Springman (165 or 174) and senior Bandele Adeni-Bada (285) are also expected to contend for the title in their respective weight classes. Rider, the top-ranked team entering the tournament, has taken a close second to Penn in the past two tournaments. Last year, the Quakers even had to make a come-from-behind sweep of their final three matches to edge the Broncs by 2.5 points. This year, Rider brings along another talented team, with All-Americans Chad Liot (165) and Leo Giel (174) holding the top seeds in their weight classes. Arizona State, last year's Pac-10 champion, also brings a top-notch squad with many strong veterans and "good young wrestlers," according to Reina. The Sun Devils' Mike Kawamura (125) is favored in his weight class, while Steve Blackford will battle Liot and possibly Springman for the 165 pound championship. "Probably the top three teams going in are Arizona State, Rider and Penn," Reina said. "Out of those three teams, it's going to be the team that shows up ready to compete for the whole day." Both Virginia and Army also have a small chance of taking the team title, but most likely will battle for fourth and fifth place. Virginia returns four NCAA qualifiers from last year but holds no solid favorites in any of the weight classes. Army "will generally be pretty physical, pretty hard-charging, but has only one standout" in Maurice Worthy (174) according to Reina. American and Seton Hall round out the seven-team field, and will most likely fall to the bottom of the final team standings. For the Quakers, the quality of the invited field will provide for a challenging test of the team's resolve after its loss to the Crimson. Matter, one of Penn's three captains, doesn't foresee a lapse happening from anyone on his team after this past week of highly focused practice. "I have full confidence in my team," he said. "Everyone should know what they're doing when they step on the mat. We need to have a high intensity, stay focused, and be unified as a team." Reina feels that his team has learned from the mistakes made last weekend, has had a successful week of practice and is ready for this higher level of competition. All he wants now is to have the right amount of intensity from each team member. "Our preparations put us in a position to be ready," he said. "But we still need to have a complete effort from 10 in the morning to the final heavyweight bout to have it happen on Sunday."