Coming out of winter break, the Maryland wrestling team's season was not going well at all. The Terps had stumbled to a 1-5 start in dual meets, and just three wrestlers on the roster had managed to amass a winning record.
Things only got worse for them when they faced a determined No. 25-ranked (USA Today/NWCA Coaches' Poll) Red and Blue squad on Saturday. Almost cruelly, the Terrapins entered the Palestra much like meat dangled into a lion's den.
Predictably, the result was a 34-6 demolition on the part of the Quakers (2-1) over the visitors. Maryland dropped to 1-6, the unfortunate victim of a Penn team that was trying to expel from its mouth the bitter taste of its most recent defeat, a 25-6 disappointment at the hands of then No. 13 Penn State.
"After the last time we competed, taking that holiday break, we were able to put a lot of good work in," Penn coach Zeke Jones said. "When a lot of people went home and relaxed, we went to work, and that was important to us."
Penn won eight of the afternoon's 10 matches, including the first five, to jump to an early 19-0 lead. Five Red and Blue wrestlers scored bonus points over their demoralized opponents. These included two falls, a technical fall and two major decisions. The Quakers were not just winning --- they were winning big.
Junior Matt Valenti, ranked No. 11 at 133 pounds, set the tone early in the second match of the day. Just ten seconds into his bout with Maryland's Brendan Bryne, the All-American took down his opponent using an uncanny mix of speed and power.
After building a 9-2 lead into the third period, Valenti cut the match short in exciting fashion by pinning Bryne with 1:27 minutes left.
"The fall wasn't as big as me coming out and wrestling my match, which I didn't do in the last match," Valenti said afterwards.
The Quakers got another fall from the likes of senior Dustin Wiles at 184. The captain leads the team in victories with 15.
"The energy is great," Jones said of the two falls. "It can give us team momentum, and team momentum ... kind of feeds off itself."
Although the Quakers are now 2-1 on the season, they are 1-0 in the year 2006. It is a distinction the team is serious about, and there is a tangible feeling that the Quakers are just now coming into their own under their new head coach.
"We said coming into this match that we had to set the tone because we didn't do that in 2005," Valenti said. "New year, new look."
Coming back from an injury that had kept him off the mat for the better part of two years, senior Matt Herrington put an emphatic stamp on his match at 174. He earned a 14-4 major decision over the Terps' Dominic Buckman.
With Herrington back in the lineup, and after Jones' tinkering to shore up some other weightclasses, a formidable Quakers squad is starting to take shape.
The team showed it against Maryland, and things can only get better when Lior Zamir is set to go at 165. The sophomore missed Saturday's match, as he is in the process of moving down from 174 to accommodate Herrington's return.
"I think the pieces are falling into place well," Wiles said. "We've got a couple months of training left, and I think by the end of the year, everything will be going really smooth."
