Wrestling drops first Ivy meet in two years

All streaks have to come to an end some time. After winning every Ivy League match since Jan. 27, 2001 Penn was finally bested by a league rival -- Cornell -- on Friday as the Quakers fell, 23-10, in Ithaca, N.Y. Cornell is ranked sixth in the country On Sunday, however, Penn rebounded, beating Columbia, 19-12 in New York City. After making the lengthy trip from Philadelphia to Ithaca the Quakers, ranked No. 19 nationally, got off to a slow start against the Big Red. The Quakers fell behind early match began with senior co-captain Jody Giuricich losing a hard fought match, 6-4. Giuricich, ranked No. 15 in the country at 149, fell to No. 9 Dustin Manotti in what was the marquee matchup of the meet. Manotti's win gave momentum to the Big Red, as it was followed by two more Cornell victories, and the Red and Blue found themselves in a 9-0 hole out of which they would not be able to climb. "We got off to a rough start," junior Doug McGraw said. "We knew they were a strong team being ranked and all. But we thought we were well prepared and had a realistic shot to win." Penn freshman standout Matt Herrington was able to momentarily stop the bleeding. He beat Cornell's Tyler Baier to get the Quakers' on the board, making the score 9-3. However, the Big Red struck back quickly winning the next two matches, one by way of major decision to extend their lead to a commanding 16-3. Penn's dominant heavyweight, nationally ranked No. 7 Matt Feast, was able to give Penn a glimmer of hope with his impressive 15-3 drubbing of Matt Bogumil, but it was too little too late for the Quakers. Unable to build on Feast's victory, the Red and Blue's Matt Valenti and Matt Eveleth both lost the next two bouts of the match, leaving the score at 23-7 in favor of Cornell with only one bout remaining. McGraw took the mat for the final match-up of the afternoon. The junior earned himself a 5-2 victory over Cornell's Byron Warner at 141 pounds, to make the final score a slightly more respectable 23-10. For Penn, who has held at least a share of the Ivy title in each of the last eight years, Ivy losses like this weekend's are few and far between. In fact, very far between. The Jan. 27, 2001 loss came when Cornell beat Penn, again in Ithaca, by a score of 16-15. Since that loss, the Quakers had won eight straight league matches, including a 21-9 victory against Cornell last year at the Palestra. "It's a tough loss for us, but Cornell is in the past," McGraw said. "We need to focus now on our other goals, most importantly of which will be the NCAA's later this year." Coming off the Cornell loss, Penn traveled to Columbia for their second Ivy League match of the weekend. Whether the Cornell loss carried with it a hangover is debatable, but Penn once again got off to a slow start, falling behind 6-0 after losses by Richard Ferguson and Herrington. Herrington was defeated by nationally No. 15 ranked Matt Palmer. "Columbia bumped up two wrestlers in weight class, so that gave them an advantage," McGraw said. "They came out real strong but looked tired later in the match." Penn's Ethan Bullock and Feast then sandwiched a Nick Thomas loss with a pair of victories as they narrowed Columbia's lead to three points, at 9-6. Mike Silengo then lost a hotly-contested match, 8-7, putting Penn behind 12-6 with only four matches remaining. The Red and Blue re-exerted their Ivy League dominance in those matches. Wins by Eveleth, Giuricich, Brett Vanderveer and a major decision victory by McGraw provided Penn with the final 13 points of the match and a 19-12 victory over Columbia.

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