Westling faces Ivy contender Big Red

The winner of the Penn-Cornell match will likely take this year's Ivy title. Technically, the team that walks off the mats tonight at Newman Arena will have a 1-0 record in the Ivy League. In reality, the winner can lay claim to the Ivy League Championship. In a match of the top two teams in the league, Penn (4-0-1) will face Cornell (7-2) at 9 p.m. on the Ithica, N.Y. campus. The Quakers are slight favorites, since their wrestlers are ranked higher than those from Cornell in seven of ten weight classes, but Penn coach Roger Reina puts little credit in those rankings. "Paper doesn't wrestle," he said. "Every match is winnable, but every match we're going to have to earn." The two teams could not match up more evenly. Each star will wrestle a star from the opposing team; no grappler will have an easy match. In fact, four pairs of wrestlers who have faced each other previously have split their matches. One of these matchups is at the 275-pound weight class, where Penn's Bandele Adeniyi-Bada will square off against Cornell's Seth Charles. Adeniyi-Bada, who scored a 9-6 victory against Charles in Penn's 22-15 victory last year, knows what he needs to do to come out victorious. "It's just a matter of capitalizing on opportunities," Adeniyi-Bada said. "I force him into many opportunities, but sometimes I just stand back instead of going for it." Another one of the most intriguing matchups should be at the 125-pound weight class. Penn's Justin Bravo, ranked first in the EIWA, takes on No. 4 Aaron Taylor. Last year Taylor beat Bravo 9-6 in this dual meet, but the Quaker sophomore avenged that loss in November with a 3-1 victory in the Ivy League Kickoff Classic. Fellow Penn sophomore Yoshi Nakamura is not just looking to win, but to win big against his 157-pound opponent Leo Urbinelli. Nakamura pinned him in the Kickoff Classic, and hopes to repeat that performance tonight. "I'm not taking this guy lightly, but I'm going to try to dominate him," Nakamura said. "Like Coach (Reina) said, we need bonus points, and I'm going to push for a pin." The two matches with most national significance are at 149 pounds and 197 pounds. At 149, the Quakers' Brett Matter (No. 6 in the nation) will be wrestling Cornell's Shawn Bradley (No. 9). Matter finished ahead of Bradley in the Kickoff Classic, but the Big Red wrestler took fifth in Midlands, a tournament in which Matter failed to place. As for the 197-pound weight class, Penn's Andrei Rodzianko is looking to run his record to a perfect 11-0, but he will not have an easy match against Cornell upstart Bob Greenleaf. "Bob Greenleaf is a really big surprise," Cornell head coach Rob Koll said. "He went from being a non-starter at the beginning of the season to No. 13 in the country." Although they know Greenleaf and the rest of the Big Red will prove to be a tough test, the Quakers are expecting a victory. And they are definitely psyched. "Coach (Reina) came in the wrestling office and he was just off the wall," Adeniyi-Bada said. "At first people just shook their heads, but then everyone got real loose and confident. The team has its own aura of confidence, top to bottom." While the focus of this confidence is Cornell, the Quakers will also face another Ivy League team, Columbia on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in Levian Gymnasium. Penn is heavily favored, but the early afternoon start following the late Cornell match the night before should offer the Quakers a sufficient test. "The timing of it is relatively similar to that of the tournaments at the end of the season," Reina said. "So it'll be good practice for us." The Cornell-Penn match is the one to watch, however. The Quakers are No. 20 in the nation and No. 1 in the EIWA, while the Big Red are No. 18 in the nation and No. 2 in the EIWA. But this matchup is about more than numbers. "It'll be a great match," Koll said. "Worth the price of admission."