Wrestling takes Michigan swing

The Penn wrestling team faces No. 8 Central Michigan and Eastern Micigan in its first two dual meets of the season. This weekend will be a reunion of sorts for the No. 17 Penn wrestling team as it travels to No. 8 Central Michigan tomorrow and Eastern Michigan Sunday to mark the official start of the dual-meet season. Five of Penn's 10 listed starting wrestlers have already faced their CMU opponents in one of the many tournament appearances the Quakers have made this season. Because of the balance between the Quakers and the Chippewas -- a comparison of each team's individual wrestler rankings shows that the teams should be an even split in their 10 dual matches -- the familiarity of the teams should prove to be a major factor Saturday night. "On paper, this is dead even," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "It's going to come down to upsets." The potential big upset of the night could come from the Quakers' 16th-ranked Yoshi Nakamura (157 lbs.), who faces No. 2 Ryan Cunningham. Nakamura fell 10-1 to Cunningham in the semifinals of the Penn State Open in early December, but Reina has great confidence that this wrestler has made enough improvement to overthrow Cunningham. "I think that Yoshi has the ability to beat anyone in the country," Reina said. "On Saturday night it's going to be up to him to take advantage of that opportunity [to beat Cunningham]." Nakamura also feels that he can pull off an upset in this rematch, especially after learning from his major mistake against Cunningham at the Penn State Open. "I definitely know I have the potential -- I just have to go out there and do it," he said. "At the Penn State [Open] I held back and that's not how wrestling goes -- you just have to put it all on the mat." Revenge over upsets by CMU underdogs at the Midlands Open tournament in late December will also be on the minds of two Penn wrestlers when they step on the mat Saturday. No. 3 Brett Matter (149 lbs.) dropped a first-round match to the Chippewas' then-unranked Greg Mayer at the Midlands 6-4 but is "confident" that he can redeem the loss. "I'm glad that Brett will have the opportunity to wrestle him again so he can prove who's the best man," Reina said. Likewise, the Quakers' No. 9 Rick Springman (165 lbs.) will have a chance to meet on the mat with Central Michigan's No. 15 Chris Snyder for the third time this season. The two first matched up in the semifinals of the Penn State Open which Springman, the eventual champion, won 4-3. They then met in the round to place at the Midlands Open, with Snyder prevailing 7-5. "To us, that was clearly an upset," Reina said. "This [upcoming] bout will let us know if it was deserved." After taking on the familiar wrestlers of CMU Saturday, the Quakers will enter a relative "no man's land" as they face Eastern Michigan Sunday. Not much is known about the young Eagles, who Reina says post a lot of freshmen in their lineup, but the reported inexperience of EMU does not mean Penn will let its guard down. "They're [a] Division I [team], so we're not going to look past them," Matter said.