“Fire! Fire! Fire!” The voice of assistant wrestling coach Kyle Cerminara rang throughout the room as the entire team continued their kneeling jump squats. For the next ten minutes, these wrestlers would have neither break nor mercy.
“Our conditioning is unbelievable right now,” said junior Mark Rappo, who wrestles at 125 pounds. “Seven minutes is a long time, and our goal is to make our opponents so tired they can’t stand by the end of the match.”
The Quakers will hope to demonstrate their superior fitness on Sunday in the eighth annual Keystone Classic held at the Palestra in a meet that carries vital postseason implications.
Among the 12 teams that will compete at the Classic, three are Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association schools — Brown, Princeton and American — that Penn will face at its end-of-year conference tournament.
“For some of the teams that we don’t see [in dual meets] like American, these tournaments are real important because head-to-head matches are going to play a role in seeding for Easterns,” Rappo said.
Seeding for the EIWA conference tournament is based largely on competition in dual meets as well as invitational tournaments like the Keystone Classic, where wrestlers can help improve their seeding with victories over other ranked opponents.
In addition to its EIWA rivals, Penn will also face stiff competition from No. 17 Northwestern and Edinboro University, which missed out on the National Wrestling Coaches Association/USA Today poll by only a few votes.
In order to gain more experience wrestling opponents with different skill sets, senior Rollie Peterkin, who is ranked No. 10 in the country at 133 pounds, moved up to compete at 141. But this week, other Quakers will jump up as well.
“There are bunch of nationally ranked guys here that some of us will be bumped up against,” Peterkin said. “It’ll be a good yardstick for where we are at right now.”
The Quakers will gain experience by facing teams with different styles from all over the country, but at the same time, the Red and Blue look to build upon last weekend’s success.
“We have a pretty solid lineup from top to bottom,” Peterkin said. “In the past, we’ve always had a bunch of guys in the finals and, with an extra tough lineup, we should maintain that status quo and win the tournament on an individual and team level.”
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