OKLAHOMA CITY --
This weekend, the Ford Center hosted what ended up as one of the most successful NCAA Tournaments in Penn wrestling history.
And Penn wrestling history was there to witness it.
Former coach Roger Reina, who stepped down this year after compiling 205 wins in 19 seasons, watched his old team from the stands. And there were sightings of Matt Feast, the dominant Penn heavyweight who graduated last year as the only three-time All-American in Quakers history.
But despite the palpable presence of Penn's past, this weekend was all about its future.
Of the six qualifiers that made it to Oklahoma, just two were seniors. Penn's three most productive wrestlers in the tournament -- freshman Matt Dragon, fifth-place junior Matt Herrington and national champion junior Matt Valenti -- will all hit the mats for the Quakers again next year.
Those three were also the team's top EIWA finishers.
Already, excitement for next year surrounds this Penn squad, and the offseason has only just begun.
"Seeing how close we are, just Penn as a team" is encouraging, Herrington said. "Matt Dragon -- a freshman, almost an All-American. Myself -- I feel I'm really close to that top three. ... I'm really excited about next year after coming off this" finish.
All of the questions going into this season about the impact of bigtime hire Zeke Jones were finally answered at Nationals. If you don't take my word for it, just ask the wrestlers in the four lightest weightclasses, all of whom made the NCAAs this year.
How many qualifiers came from the six heaviest classes? Just two.
Thanks to what Jones -- who wrestled at 118 pounds in college -- terms "a special connection between lightweights," most expected the benefit of the new coach's presence to reach the smaller wrestlers first.
And considering those grapplers' performances, especially toward the end of the season, it appears that they were right.
Led by 133-pound national champion Valenti, the Quakers vaulted to a 12th-place NCAA finish, much higher than their No. 23 team ranking heading in to the tournament might have indicated.
The placing was the sixth-best in Penn history, although the point total of 51 was the highest ever.
With the team exceeding expectations to such a large degree in Jones' first year on the job, the aura around Penn wrestling is entirely positive; the newly christened marriage between coach and program is looking better and better every day.
This, coming after Reina's sudden resignation and Jones' hurried hiring, is more than anyone could have hoped for.
"They had us early as 25th, 30th in the country, not even in some rankings," Jones said. "You start to wonder what is true. But what I saw in the first couple weeks of training was that the bar of the program was high and the kids were committed."
Jones is also a tremendous asset on the recruiting front. His Olympic credentials and training regimens attract big-name high school prospects like bait on the end of a fishing line.
Only they aren't being suckered in like helpless lunkers; on the other end of the line, they'll find a nationally competitive program -- and an Ivy League education, to boot.
Using that unique recruiting angle, Jones has already reeled in his own prized fish: the second-ranked 184-pound senior in the nation, Pennsylvania's Thomas Shovlin. And the best part? The kid's older brother wrestled for Ivy rival Cornell.
And every successful team needs a poster boy.
With his national championship this weekend, Valenti only strengthened his bid to be that guy.
But really, he has been all year long.
"I'm not going to change who I am, how I train or how hard I work in school," Valenti said. "I'm just going to keep up what I've been doing because obviously it's been successful for me. I just want to help teach these younger guys to do the same thing."
Jones knows the value of having an asset like Valenti.
"He's all the things embodied in what it means to be a Penn athlete and a Penn student," the coach said. "We're going to hold Matt up, we're going to show the world that Matt Valenti is what we want to have in our program at Penn."
Everybody likes a winner. And with a coach committed to continuing down that road, and with the personnel and resources at hand to do it, this is shaping up to be a very likeable team.
Ilario Huober is a sophomore international relations major from Syracuse, N.Y., and is Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is ihuober@sas.upenn.edu.
