Eight Penn wrestlers headed to Nationals

Eight members of the 12th-ranked Quakers squad qualified for NCAAs, which begin today at Penn State. No one ever said that March Madness only applied to basketball. In fact, the Penn wrestling team has its own "Elite Eight" in the NCAA Championships. The tournament begins today and runs through Saturday at Penn State. After storming through the competition last weekend at Army for their fourth straight Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association title, the Quakers qualified wrestlers in every weight class except 174 and 184 lbs. The win at EIWAs pushed Penn to 12th in the latest national polls, its highest rank ever. And along with the overall team success, 149-lb. senior Brett Matter and 197-lb. senior Andrei Rodzianko enter the tournament with legitimate chances of winning national titles. Rodzianko is undefeated after 20 matches this year and is currently ranked third in the nation. He destroyed the competition at EIWAs en route to winning the Most Outstanding Wrestler award. On December 30 at the prestigious Midlands Open, Rodzianko stunned defending NCAA champ Lee Fullhart of Iowa in the semifinals and beat Iowa State's Zachery Thompson in the finals to win. Matter, ranked fourth, brought home the third Easterns title of his Penn career. Although he sat out all of last year with a knee injury, Matter has won Eastern titles in every season he has competed. In addition to these two title contenders, the Quakers will be represented by sophomore Justin Bravo (125 lbs.), junior Jason Nagle (133 lbs.), senior Mark Piotrowsky (141 lbs.), sophomore Yoshi Nakamura (157 lbs.), sophomore Rick Springman (165 lbs.) and junior heavyweight Bandele Adeniyi-Bada. While these wrestlers may not be the favorites to win, they can earn All-American status by placing in the top eight of their respective weight classes. Springman lost in the first round in last year's NCAAs, while both Piotrowsky and Rodzianko won two matches before exiting. The highlight for Penn at last year's tournament, held at Cleveland State, was then-senior Brandon Slay's second-place finish in the 167-lb. weight class. Slay powered Penn to a 27th-place finish overall, and the Quakers should improve on that showing this year. Adeniyi-Bada, who was the top seed at Easterns, earned a wild card berth to the NCAAs after losing his semifinal match. Regardless, he is just happy to make the trip. "I think I deserve to go, because I think I can make more noise there than half the guys wrestling in this [EIWA] tournament," Adeniyi-Bada said. The Cinderella story of the weekend belonged to Nagle. He did not even start for Penn until a few weeks back and pulled off a shocking victory at the Eastern championships from the No. 7 seed. Nagle will be returning to his old stomping ground as he transferred from Penn State after his freshman season. "I came in as a transfer with a 3-20 record and now I'm the Eastern champion," Nagle said. "It's not the final step but it's an important step."

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