By Andrew Sweet
Staff Writer
sweetad@sas.upenn.edu
There is no doubt that the best competition in the country tends to highlight a team's strengths and weaknesses.
Just ask Penn's wrestling team, which just completed the first stage of its season with a solid showing at the National Duals this past weekend. At the event, the Quakers beat West Virginia, but lost to No. 1 Missouri and No. 9 Central Michigan.
In both losses, Penn jumped out to large leads (9-0 and 10-0, respectively) with wins in the lower weightclasses, yet lost momentum once the match reached the heavier bouts. This brings up an inevitable question: Why has this been the theme during the Quakers' matches against top opponents?
Senior Matt Valenti said: "I don't think I can pinpoint one reason."
And it is very possible that there is no one reason. One train of thought is that Penn has simply happened to wrestle against teams that are stronger at the heavier weights.
"It's all about the matchups in dual meets," senior Matt Eveleth said.
In the National Duals, the two ranked teams that Penn faced were extremely strong at the upper weights. At the 165-pound weightclass and above, eight of the 10 opponents Quaker wrestlers faced were in the top ten nationally in their class. This included two No. 1-ranked opponents from Missouri.
"We have faced some teams with very good upper weights," Valenti said.
Another possibility is the experience factor.
"We are a little younger in the upper weights," head coach Zeke Jones said. "It's a little bit of matchups and a little bit of youth and inexperience."
Eveleth, who has been incredibly consistent in the 125-pound weightclass this season, may be able to credit some of his 3-0 record at the National Duals to his experience.
And Valenti, the reigning national champion who wrestles in the 133-pound weightclass, also has the benefit of being a senior. (He won both matches he participated in this past weekend.)
It may just be that Penn's most consistent wrestlers are also the oldest.
Perhaps the most compelling argument for this pattern is that the Quakers' best upper-weight wrestler, No. 2 Matt Herrington, is a senior. So it seems that experience has had more than a passing correlation with success in Penn's program.
And it is not as if the Quakers program is a strong history of heavyweight wrestlers. Matt Feast, who graduated in 2005, was a three-time All-American and number three on Penn's all-time wins list.
Regardless of the issue, the team is still confident in its ability across the board.
"We need to put some diligence and some work in" to the upper weights, said Jones, who himself competed as a smaller wrestler in college. "But at the same time I think it's probably just the way it's happened lately."
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