Senior Matt Feast was held just short of the century mark in career victories this weekend at the 23rd annual Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational.
Michigan's Greg Wagner, seeded second at the invite, denied top-ranked heavyweight Feast the honor of joining the elite circle of four other Quakers -- including All-Americans Brett Matter (128 wins), Yoshi Nakamura (115), Olympian Brandon Slay (110), and Rick Springman (109) -- who have reached the historic plateau.
In the end, Feast, ranked third in the nation, placed second in the 275-pound weightclass and moved his record to 12-1 this season.
Penn, which came into the tournament ranked 15th nationally, placed 13th out of 46 teams.
"It was a really tough tournament," junior Dustin Wiles said. "This is the first time we've been here, but we've faced competition like that before."
The Red and Blue grappled several top 25 opponents, including Ivy League rival No. 12 Cornell. Other top teams included tournament champion Michigan, runner-up Hofstra and the nation's third ranked team, Nebraska, which placed third.
Penn's wrestlers were pleased with the team's performance during the tournament's first day as the Quakers finished in eighth place. But Penn faced a series of upsets on the second day that left the grapplers a little disappointed.
"We had some good moments," Penn coach Roger Reina said. "I think we've identified some key areas we need to improve further on. Throughout the day we competed well. We didn't elevate our game going into the second day, like we needed to."
Quakers senior grappler Marcus Schontube also placed individually, taking sixth in the 197-pound weightclass.
His best match of the tournament came earlier though, in a three-overtime bout with Cornell's Jerry Rinaldi. Schontube led 1-0 into the third period, and appeared on the verge of a victory when Rinaldi made a reversal.
But Schontube was able to escape and tie the bout to force an extra frame. In the second overtime period, Schontube appeared on the verge winning after scoring a reversal with 10 seconds left, but Rinaldi fought back with a reversal of his own to force a third overtime period, which Rinaldi won on an escape.
In the consolation semifinals, the fourth-seeded Schontube was retired by top-seed Ryan Bader of Arizona State, 9-2.
Despite the loss, Reina expressed a vote of confidence in the senior grappler.
"Marcus Schontube had a disappointing day," Reina said. "He's still close to breaking through to the elite level."
Sophomore Brock Wittmeyer fell to sixth-seed Brian Stith of Arizona State, 9-4, in the fourth round of consolations in the 157-pound weightclass. This loss brought Wittmeyer's four match win streak to an end.
Wiles, seeded seventh, fell to eighth-seeded Rocco Caponi of Virginia, 12-0 in his consolation match.
"A lot of guys stepped up and wrestled well," Wiles said. "We'll take what we learned from this one, hoping to change the outcome a little bit next time. The [Midlands] will be a more of a test to see whether we can improve from our previous results."
