As long as the season has been for the Penn wrestling team, there’s not one among them who is ready to step off the mat just yet.
Today marks the beginning of the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships tournament in Omaha, Neb., and Penn will have six representatives donning the red and blue. Among the featured grapplers will be Bryan Ortenzio, Zack Kemmerer, Cesar Grajales, Gabe Burak, Scott Giffin, and Micah Burak.
“This whole year has been pretty difficult but we trained through it, and the kids finally got rewarded a bit at the end of the year,” Penn coach Rob Eiter said. “They’re feeling like they deserve to be here.”
That reward came after Penn’s second-place finish (behind No. 4 Cornell) last weekend at the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association championships.
The Quakers beat out then-No.7 Lehigh for the runner-up spot and turned some heads in the process. The impressive individual performances by the six aforementioned wrestlers earned them automatic bids to the tournament. And while the Quakers were unable to obtain any at-large bids, the big stage still looms for over half of the team’s lineup.
Penn’s recent success marks an unlikely conclusion to a tumultuous season that has been marred by injuries and off-the-mat issues involving some of the squad’s best wrestlers.
The team competed in many of its early meets without senior captains Grajales, Matt Dragon, and Rollie Peterkin, who were suspended from the team in November.
The three captains were also charged with aggravated assault and other related offenses.
The charges were later withdrawn, and the wrestlers were reinstated at the end of December. Peterkin took the semester off, while Dragon and Grajales made their first appearances of the season at the Southern Scuffle Dec. 29-30
The duo then found themselves battling injuries and moving in and out of the lineup for the remainder of the season.
Regardless, this Penn group is a far more confident one than the squad most fans have witnessed thus far. The Quakers’ best grapplers are more likely than ever to pull off some big upsets in college wrestling’s final weekend.
“We’re still a little under the radar on the national level, and I think we can still sneak up on some teams year,” Giffin said.
According to Eiter, Giffin might just be the one to surprise some this weekend. His first-round match should be his toughest, however, as he faces off against No. 2 Jay Borschel out of Iowa.
Another wrestler expected to do some damage is senior Cesar Grajales, who is making his fourth trip to nationals. He will also face a ranked opponent in Oklahoma’s No. 3 Kyle Terry, who has lost just two matches on the year.
Regardless, it’s doubtful that records and rankings will mean much once the first bell rings.
“With the number of kids in each weightclass, each match is tough,” Eiter said. “Once you get here its just a matter of who pushes a little harder.”
For a team that’s been pushing uphill all season, it should be worth watching the Quakers climb the final steps.
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