Wrestling picks up a tie and a big win

The Ivy League implications of Friday night's Penn-Cornell wrestling dual meet were sky-high as the No. 16 Quakers traveled to chilly Ithaca, N.Y., to take on the No. 19 Big Red. The winner of the match between the two perennial Ivy powers would invariably claim the Ancient Eight title at season's end, barring any upsets through the remainder of the regular season. But as the Penn wrestlers left the quiet Finger Lakes region for the hustle and bustle of Upper Manhattan and a Saturday match with Columbia, only one thing was certain -- the Ivy League wrestling title is still up for grabs. The Ivy League opener between the two title contenders ended in an suspenseful 16-16 tie. The opening match between the Quakers (5-0-2, 1-0-1 Ivy League) and the Big Red (9-2-1, 1-0-1) seemed to be an omen of things to come. In that match, No. 6 Brett Matter of the Red and Blue found himself tied 1-1 with ninth-ranked Shawn Bradley at the end of regulation in the 149-pound weight class. Bradley won the ensuing overtime for a 2-1 decision over Matter, giving Cornell a short-lived 3-0 overall lead. The Quakers' Yoshi Nakamura (157 lbs.) and Rick Springman (165 lbs.) helped regain Penn's lead in the second and third matches. Nakamura won his match against Leo Urbanelli 6-2, while Springman earned an 11-2 major decision over Sean Severin and gave Penn a 7-3 overall lead. This lead went back and forth between the two teams until the final match of the night in the 141-lb. weight class, with the scoreboard reading 16-13 in favor of the Quakers. Cornell bounced back when 20th-ranked Ben New upset Penn's 12th-ranked Mark Piotrowsky to even the score at its final 16-16 tally. "We didn't come out the way we should have or how we are capable of," Penn tri-captain Andrei Rodzianko said. Rodzianko, the second-ranked wrestler in the country in the 197-lb. weight class, kept his season-long unbeaten streak alive in the Big Red match with a 4-3 victory over No. 20 Bob Greenleaf but was a bit unhappy with his performance against the Cornell grappler. "It was the kind of match where we both were holding back," he said. "I'm at the point where I should open up and start getting major [decisions] on guys." Rodzianko quickly took this mind-set to heart the next day with a 10-2 major decision over Columbia's Aaron Newman, helping the Quakers cruise to an easy 35-6 victory over the Lions (2-3, 0-2). Penn heavyweight Bandele Adeniyi-Bada also earned a major decision, following Rodzianko's major with a 13-5 drubbing of the Lions' Pat Herriman. Both Piotrowsky and Springman pinned their respective Columbia opponents in almost lightning-quick fashion. Piotrowsky pinned Columbia's Richard Seistman 1:48 into the first round and Springman recorded his seventh pin of the season on the Lions' Eric Nagle only 1:04 into the first round of his match. Penn's Jason Nagle (133 lbs.) also recorded a 16-0 technical decision over Columbia's Paul Caruso during the afternoon match. For Rodzianko, Penn's thrashing of Columbia was not much of a surprise. "In the four years I've been here, [the Columbia meet] has been pretty much the same every year," he said.