Wrestling finishes ahead of Ivy champ Cornell at EIWAs

Roger Reina shook his head in disbelief. "Guts," the Penn wrestling coach said, repeating himself time after time, unable to think of a more fitting word.

"Guts" described the performance of Penn co-captain Doug McGraw.

The senior's come-from-behind win in the 141-pound finals spearheaded the Quakers' successful showing at the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships, held at the Palestra, March 6-7. The Red and Blue finished second behind Lehigh in a field of 13 teams and qualified seven wrestlers for the NCAA Nationals in St. Louis.

At a tournament, however, the focus is on individuals. And no individual received more attention than McGraw.

"It was clearly the highlight of the tournament," Reina said. "It's determination like that that inspires an entire team.

"It inspires everyone in the gym to see a guy who digs down for that extra, extra, extra, extra effort. It's so uncommon. [I've seen it] maybe a handful of times."

Heading into the third period of a match against Lehigh's top-seeded Cory Cooperman, the third-seeded McGraw was down, 6-3. An escape drew the Penn grappler within two points of his opponent.

With just 48 seconds left, despite lacking a single offensive point, McGraw attacked to force two takedowns. Cooperman countered with one of his own to tie the score 8-8 and push the match to overtime.

Fueled by the roars of the crowd, however, McGraw could not be stopped. He scored another takedown for a 10-8 win.

"It wasn't a surprise at all to me," McGraw said. "If you don't think you can win, you shouldn't be out there.

"It was basically in my mindset that I could win. I felt in my heart that there was no way I was going to lose."

McGraw traveled a long, bumpy road to reach this point. A serious concussion knocked him out for much of the season.

But in both the semifinals and finals at the EIWAs, McGraw took on opponents to whom he previously had lost. Harvard's Max Meltzer earned a 3-1 decision over him last month, and Cooperman registered a 7-3 win two weeks later.

Yet this time around, it was McGraw's "guts" that carried the day.

"That's the best I've wrestled in a while," he said.

McGraw was not alone in avenging previous losses. Penn senior 157-pounder Brett Vanderveer earned a spot in the consolation finals by defeating Columbia's Devin Mesanko, 8-6. By contrast, Mesanko earned a 7-6 victory in the Quakers-Lions dual meet in January.

"We took a big step towards" fulfilling our potential, Reina said. "We were able to turn around a lot of results today.

"The fact that we finished ahead of Cornell when, during the dual meet season, they came in and beat us" shows our development, Reina added.

The Quakers' most dominant performer was sophomore Matt Valenti. He won the 125-pound bracket without giving up a single takedown. In the finals, he defeated Lehigh's Mario Stuart, 7-2.

"I definitely had a lot of adrenaline going," Valenti said. "My strategy was to score first and keep the match at my pace, and I was able to do that.

"My goal is to dominate -- to keep widening the gap. I beat him by three points last time, and I beat him by more this time."

Joining McGraw and Valenti as Penn's individual champion was junior heavyweight Matt Feast. The No. 1 tournament seed -- ranked second nationally -- knocked off Navy's Tanner Garrett, 4-1, in the finals.

Penn senior Marcus Schontube was the runner-up at 197 pounds, and sophomore Matt Herrington earned third place at 174 pounds. Placing fourth were Vanderveer and 184-pound junior Paul Velekei.

All four will join the Quakers' trio of EIWA champions at the NCAAs in St. Louis, March 18-20.

Penn finished second overall with 120.5 points. Lehigh won with 145, and Cornell took third with 118.5.

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