Wrestling seeded 6th for national showcase

Penn heads to the National Dual Meet Championships. Like it or not, the Penn wrestling team may have yet another midwest opponent stuffed down its throat. Ranked fourth in the nation and seeded third in this weekend's National Dual Meet Championships, Big Twelve powerhouse Oklahoma State looms as the sixth-seeded Quakers' likely second-round opponent tomorrow at State College, Pa. Penn is certainly no stranger to midwest wrestling this season. All three of the Quakers' dual meets have been against opponents from the elite midwestern-based Big Ten. And, so far, the conference has not been kind to the Red and Blue grapplers. The 1998-99 Quakers, with no Big Ten opponents on the slate, finished with a 10-0-2 record. This year's Red and Blue squad has already lost close matches to Michigan and Purdue. Penn coach Roger Reina, however, does not feel that it matters what athletic conference their opponent comes from. "In terms of what conference they're from, it's really not that important," Reina said. Penn wrestlers will have to disagree with their coach. "They're just more in-your-face, non-stop brawling technique," Penn junior Mike Fickell said of midwestern wrestlers. "We don't do too much of that in the Ivies." If Penn gets by Oklahoma State, Minnesota would likely be the Quakers' next opponent. And nowhere is that Midwestern style more evident than in the Golden Gophers heavyweight, Brock Lesnar, a potential opponent for Penn's Bandele Adeniyi-Bada. Minnesota's big man carries a No. 1 national ranking, and in last year's National Duals, Lesnar pinned all four of his opponents. "He seems big, stationary and uses a lot of strength and muscle," Adeniyi-Bada said. Lesnar -- never known for being a finesse wrestler -- has, by Adeniyi-Bada's estimation, a several-inch and 20-pound weight advantage over the Penn senior tri-captain. However, the midwestern style -- seven minutes of incessant intensity -- is one the Penn wrestlers see every day in practice with Quakers assistant coach Brian Dolph, a three-time All-American from Indiana. Adeniyi-Bada sees Reina, a Penn graduate, as the coach who "is always preaching technique," while Dolph "stresses physical to complement the tactical." If the Quakers face Oklahoma State, last year's National Duals champion, Penn will have to be firing on all cylinders to beat a team with nine of its ten wrestlers ranked in the top 20 nationally -- and six in the top ten. But there is no guarantee of a Penn-Oklahoma State showdown, as to get the opportunity to face the Cowboys, the Quakers will have to do something they have never done before -- win a first-round match in the National Duals. Penn's first round draw in the 16-team field will be determined randomly from among the eight unseeded teams. The Quakers could end up facing a team as weak as Division III Wartburg or as strong as No. 16 West Virginia -- a squad that knocked off Penn in a wrestleback round of the National Duals in 1998. This is the third time in four years that Penn will compete in the National Duals, but the Quakers have not yet been able to claim a place by finishing in the top eight. "We want to come back with some lumber," Fickell said. "We want to place." A key to determining whether the Quakers can grab a place in this weekend's tournament is whether Penn can keep up its intensity against a potentially unranked team in the first round. The Penn grapplers will be facing a situation similar to one they faced last week, with a weaker opponent preceding a top-notch foe. Purdue, ranked 24th in the nation, upset Penn last Thursday when the Quakers might have been looking toward top-ten Michigan. "I think maybe we overlooked Purdue a little bit, and it came up and bit us in the ass," Matter said. "So in that respect, we can't overlook any opponent." The tournament has a strong field, with eight of the top 14 teams in the country in attendance. Host Penn State will also compete in the tournament and could face Penn in the first round in a rematch of December's Palestra dual meet, which the Quakers won. Reina worked his wrestlers hard in double practices both yesterday and Tuesday to try to get the Quakers back on track after a two-match losing streak. "Most important is that we rebound and look at this weekend as an opportunity to redeem ourselves," Reina said.