Wrestling spots Cornell six points but still wins

The Penn wrestling team stood at a crossroads in its season on Friday night. The No. 15 Quakers were 2-4, about to face their first Ivy League opponent of the season, No. 14 Cornell. The Big Red and Quakers have won or split every Ivy title since 1986, and posters around campus announced the clear message -- "Ivy League title will be on the line!" The Quakers' whirlwind weekend also included two meets on Saturday, one against Columbia at the Palestra and one against Franklin and Marshall at North Penn High School in Lansdale, Pa., neither of which was expected to, or did, pose any problem for the Red and Blue. Penn routed both the Lions and Diplomats, 44-6. Penn knew from the get-go against the Big Red that it would start at a disadvantage as Kevin Rucci, the Quakers' lone 125-pounder, is out with a broken bone in his hand. Rucci's absence put Penn in a 6-0 hole before the meet even began, making every bout even more important to the Red and Blue. "We knew we were down six points," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "So we knew we had to make up for that throughout the lineup and increase our intensity." And in what may have been the most important match of the night, Penn senior Jonathan Gough (149) scraped past Alex Berman to set up a thrilling 19-16 victory for the Quakers. When Gough took to the mat, Cornell led 16-12. Had he lost, the Big Red's lead would have been insurmountable for Penn's final wrestler, Brett Matter (157). A win by Gough, however, meant that Matter could seal the meet for Penn in his bout, which wound up being the case. At the opening of the night, an equally important match pitted Penn senior Tim Ortman against Cornell's John Fogarty at 165. Fogarty was in the lineup because of past success against Ortman at the 1998 EIWA Championships. After a back-and-forth dual that really could have gone either way, Ortman came away with a 7-6 victory. Given the added importance of each bout, the Quakers needed Rick Springman, ranked No. 2 in the country at 174, to score at least a major decision over Joe Tucceri. Springman won 7-0, just one point short of the major. Penn sophomore Craig Melcher then faced No. 17 Rost Aizenberg at 184. Even though Melcher lost by a 17-7 major decision, he did not lose critical points on a technical fall or a pin. Cornell trailed 6-4 when No. 18 Bob Greenleaf wrestled No. 13 Mike Fickell at 197. Fickell ran out of gas and Greenleaf scored the upset to give the Big Red its first lead of the night at 7-6. After No. 6 Bandele Adeniyi-Bada handled No. 19 Seth Charles in the heavyweight bout to recapture the lead for Penn, the forfeit at 125 gave Cornell six more points -- the equivalent of a pin -- on the scoreboard. Jason Nagle's win at 133 cut the Big Red lead to 13-12 with three bouts left. "Going into the final bouts, I was really just thinking pretty much the same thing as we had planned to do for the entire meet, which was increase our intensity, and focus our competition and try to keep our pace high," Reina said. Trying to protect its lead, Cornell got even more defensive. Knowing that Penn's all-time wins leader, Brett Matter, was lurking in the night's final bout, all Cornell's wrestlers had to do was not lose at either 141 and 149. At 141, Ben New controlled the pace and took Penn freshman Jody Giuricich to overtime, where he won a tight 4-2 decision. That put the onus on Gough. The Penn senior trailed Alex Berman early on after a surprising takedown. He seemed destined for defeat when Berman threw him in the third period, but Gough quickly recovered to keep Berman from scoring. Then Gough took Berman down. Although Penn still trailed, 16-15, dejection was written all over the faces of the Big Red, who knew what was to come with Matter wrestling. The inevitable did occur, as Matter notched a major decision to clinch the victory for the Quakers.