Wrestling | 'Lasting impression' for Penn

It was senior day at the Palestra, and the graduating wrestlers wanted to go out with two big wins over Ivy rivals Harvard and Brown.

Boy did they.

The Quakers absolutely demolished the Crimson and Bears, winning 35-12 and 34-6, respectively.

"It's a good lasting impression for [the seniors] to have the last home matches be big wins," coach Rob Eiter said.

Of course, beating league rivals makes it even sweeter.

"It was great to start off the [Ivy League] dual meets with two good wins," Eiter said.

Although the Quakers (10-5, 5-1 EIWA) already faced perennial doormat Princeton, this past weekend and the next are the meat of the Ancient Eight schedule, as the team will travel to take on Columbia and defending Ivy and EIWA champion Cornell next weekend.

The Quakers proved that they could win close matches by wrestling for the full seven minutes. Eiter thinks this is a good sign.

"Against Cornell, we're going to need everything and then some if we want to compete."

But before looking ahead to the defending champs - not to mention the meet at Columbia - the Quakers made sure to take care of business against the woeful Bears (3-9), 1-6) and Crimson (2-9, 1-3).

The Red and Blue had four pins on the day, including one in each match by senior Andrew Coles. He only needed 2:10 and 4:20 to pin his Harvard and Brown opponents, respectively.

"I have been lucky to have the chance to wrestle this year," he said. "I have tried to take advantage of that, and to come away with two pins in my final home meets is special."

Domination against these two New England schools is nothing new - Penn's last loss to Harvard came in 1990, while Brown last beat Penn in 1993.

Although Eiter clearly was happy with the overall results, the day didn't go perfectly for him.

"Obviously against Harvard we'd like to get some of those matches back," the first-year coach said.

Eiter was referring to the three individual matches Penn lost to Harvard - specifically, two chances to upset ranked wrestlers.

In the only matchup of ranked wrestlers on the day, No. 4 J.P. O'Connor of Harvard took down No. 18 Matt Dragon in a very close 4-1 decision in the 157-pound weightclass.

At 184, senior Colin Hitschler lost to Harvard's No. 10 Louis Caputo by a disqualification for an excess of penalty points. However, he was only disqualified with one second left, and at that point he was losing 5-1.

Despite the small setbacks, Coles thought their performance set them up nicely for the showdown in Ithaca, N.Y., Sunday.

"This weekend plus the next weekend is when we need to pull it together," Coles said. "Against Cornell, hopefully everything falls into place and this year we turn it around after losing the EIWAs by half a point last year."

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