ST. LOUIS -- It looks as if the NCAA Wrestling Tournament seeding committee knew what it was doing when it handed out just one seed to a Penn participant.
The only seeded grappler for the Quakers (12-7, 6-3 EIWA), No. 8 Rollie Peterkin at 125 pounds, was the the only Red and Blue wrestler to make it to the quarterfinals of his weightclass.
Early knockouts of heavyweight Trey McLean, 141-pounder Rick Rappo and 157-pounder Matt Dragon had the Quakers reeling a bit, but strong performances out of Peterkin, 149-pound senior Cesar Grajales and 174-pounder Scott Giffin have helped the Red and Blue maintain a decent team score. Penn currently sits in 31st place with 8.5 points.
In contrast, the two teams tied for first, Iowa and Iowa State, each have 32 points.
In his first match tomorrow, Peterkin will be wrestling No. 1 seed Paul Donahoe of Edinboro, who beat him in Penn's dual match against the Fighting Scots.
But coach Rob Eiter thinks Peterkin has what it takes to turn his fortunes around and avoid another loss to the undefeated Donahoe, who finished the regular season with a record of 29-0.
"Rollie's wrestling with a lot of confidence right now," Eiter said. "That's all that really matters."
Giffin was the other Quakers wrestler to look very confident from the beginning, starting off his tournament with a 6-3 upset of No. 10 seed Kurt Brenner of West Virginia. He followed that up with a great effort against No. 7 seed Mike Miller of Central Michigan, but ultimately fell, 4-1.
The sophomore from Berlin, N.J., is looking to build on the momentum gained from his strong performances.
"I gotta just ride that wave," Giffin said. "And take both the win and loss for what they were worth."
Giffin's ability to keep things in perspective was mirrored by teammate Grajales, who rebounded off an opening round pin loss to No. 3 seed Darrion Caldwell of NC State very well, winning two consolation matches and making it to tomorrow.
But ask Eiter, and it seems like the head coach would expect nothing less.
"Cesar's a workhorse," he said. "[His composure] shows the true heart that Cesar has."
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