Wrestling overpowers competition at EIWAs

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- Coach Roger Reina may shun the label, but there is no way to discuss the Penn wrestling team's performance at the 1999 EIWA Championships without using the word "dynasty." "I wouldn't call it a dynasty. I'd just call it people who work hard day by day and make the right decisions about how they're working and how they're spending their time," Reina said. The Quakers' performance was nothing short of bestial. They pummeled the competition, outdistancing second-place Cornell 166.5-133.5 en route to the third-highest point total in EIWA history. Penn had five champions, six finalists and an astounding eight NCAA qualifiers in the 10 weight classes. The EIWA victory further polishes an already-glittering Penn season in which the Quakers posted an undefeated (10-0-2) dual-meet campaign. Fueled by their dominating performance, the Quakers jumped to an all-time-high No. 12 in the most recent National Wrestling Coaches Association poll. Consensus favorite and national No. 3 Andrei Rodzianko did more than handle his opponents -- he annihilated his competition at 197 lbs. and was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Wrestler while winnign his first EIWA title. "Rodzianko looks as if he has all he needs to beat anybody in the country," Harvard assistant coach and 1996 Olympic gold medalist Kendall Cross said. Penn's history-making win at West Point makes the term "dynasty" fit like a glove. The 1998-99 squad is the first team to sit atop the EIWA for four straight seasons since Navy did it from 1943-46. Amazingly, this year's senior class will graduate without an Easterns disappointment. As if this were not enough to please the Quaker faithful, only one of Penn's five champions is a senior, as all but Rodzianko will be raring to do it again next season. "Dynasty" fits, yet nothing came easy to Penn. Experts gave the pre-meet edge to both Lehigh and Cornell so the Quakers had their work cut out for them. "You don't get to talk about a word like that if you don't work as hard as we do," sophomore 157 lb. champion Yoshi Nakamura said. The Quakers came out swinging. Since both Lehigh and Cornell had slight edges in the seedings, Penn's first round needed to be flawless. And flawless it was. The Quakers sent all 10 starters into the championship bracket. The team was buoyed by pins from No. 3-seeded Rick Springman (165 lbs.) and Jason Nagle (133 lbs.). Nagle, the seventh seed, would eventually become the cinderella story of the weekend by claiming the title. A 22-7 tech fall from Nakamura yielded more needed bonus points -- the Quakers earned bonus points, awarded for major decisions, tech falls and pins, in six of their seven first round matches -- and put Penn in the driver's seat. Penn led Lehigh 15.5-14.4 after the first round. The quarterfinals were up-and-down for the Red and Blue. Seven of 10 wrestlers successfully made it into the semis but there was one hurtful quarterfinals upset. Navy's Don Waters got the best of No.3-seeded Penn tri-captain Mark Piotrowsky, 6-5. "I don't even know what happened. I just wasn't there," Piotrowsky said. "After that match, I just went off on my own for a while and I didn't want my last match to be at West Point." But a determined Pio battled back to win third-place honors and a wild card bid to the NCAAs. Further offsetting his quarterfinals loss for the Quakers was the surprise upset of Nagle over tournament favorite Juan Venturi of Princeton. Mike Gadsby (184 lbs.) and Ryan Slack (174 lbs.) both bowed out for Penn in the quarterfinals. The semifinals, just like in Penn's three previous EIWA wins, was the round in which the competition was put away by the Quakers' ferocity. "Our quarterfinal round was very tentative and they responded exceptionally well," Reina said. The crowd at Army couldn't hide its admiration for Penn in the semis, where the Quakers won each of their first six matches. This included another Nagle upset, an explosive 14-8 decision by 125-pounder Justin Bravo over Lehigh's Bruce Kelly and an 11-6 victory by Springman over Travis Doto to avenge his loss in the Lehigh-Penn dual meet. The lone damper in the semis came from heavyweight Bandele Adeniyi-Bada's loss but even that paled in comparison to what Reina called a "helluva round." Six Quakers paraded out on to the mats for the finals promptly at 7 p.m. as the regal presentation of the colors got things underway. It would only take two matches for the Quakers to clinch their victory but the Red and Blue onslaught never abated. Bravo got things started for Penn with a title in the opening weight class, posting a 3-1 victory over No. 1-seeded Jeremy Sluyter of East Strousberg, the defending champ. "It was a real tough match. His style makes it tough to score on him, so I had to keep working until things finally opened up," Bravo said. Nagle clinched the Quakers victory with a win at the next weight class, ousting his third top-three seed of the tournament, Livio DiRubbo, 10-6. At 149 lbs., Penn's Brett Matter became a three-time champion with a hard-fought 6-5 decision over Cornell's Shaun Bradley. Matter had the vocal support of his father Andy -- a three-time champ himself who was inducted into the EIWA Hall of Fame before the competition -- and his brother Clint, a former Penn star and two-time EIWA champ. The junior tri-captain looked confident and prepared for NCAAs, but, always the perfectionist, still found fault with his own performance. "I don't really think I wrestled especially well today," Matter said. "Bradley's a tough kid, but I don't really think I wrestled my match." Everything after Nagle's bout was just gravy but that failed to keep Penn from pouring it on thick. Nakamura exacted revenge by topping No. 1 seed Chris Ayers of Lehigh in the finals, 3-1, countering an overtime shot from the Engineer for the win. "I thought he would try for a double-leg [takedown]," Nakamura said. "I expected it, and sure enough he tried it. I slid right by him and took him down." Springman grudgingly accepted a loss to Harvard's Joey Killar next, but this Crimson victory was quickly obliterated by Rodzianko's textbook 18-4 major decision over Brad Soltis. The senior 197-pounder outclassed his opponents on his way to a share of the coveted Fletcher Award for career EIWA points. The careful technician, much like the rest of the Penn team, did more than make history at West Point -- he taught a lesson as well.