The Harvard wrestling team began its first campaign under head coach Jay Weiss with a dominating performance at the Doug Parker Wrestling Invitational held last weekend at Springfield College.

The 17-team individual tournament featured local Division II and Division III schools with Harvard as the lone Division l representative.

Although team points were not recorded, the Crimson clearly out wrestled its opponents, taking first place in the 118, 126, 134, and 158-pound divisions.

"All the lightweights did really well," sophomore Brendan Noonan said. "In the heavies we don't have all of our spots filled yet."

In the 118-pound weight class, junior Craig Vitagliano captured the crown for the Crimson by defeating Kyle DeForest of Plymouth College, 8-6, in Overtime.

The finals of the 126-pound division pit two Crimson grapplers, Noonan and freshman Dustin DeNunzio, against each other.

Denunzio bested his teammate in a tight 4-3 victory.

"You generally don't want teammates to wrestle each other," Weiss said. "But each school could enter two wrestlers in each weight class and it so happened that both of our guys made it to the finals."

The Crimson got another stunning freshman performance from Joel Friedman, who captured the 134-pound division and won Most Outstanding Wrestler for the tournament.

In the finals of his dray, Friedman defeated Worcester Polytechnic Institute's George Chu, a two-time Division III All-American.

In the 142-pound division freshman Adam Griesemer advanced to the finals before bowing out to defending tournament champion Andy Goodwin of Springfield.

"We have a great class of freshmen," Weiss said. "They really performed well this weekend and they'll all be pushing for starting positions."

Tri-captain Khris Reina, carrying the banner of the upperclassmen, won the 158-pound weight class.

While the tournament results were certainly heartening for the rebuilding Crimson squad, the caliber of competition it faced this weekend was much lower than that of its Ivy League rivals.

"The Ivy League is very tough," said Weiss, who was an assistant coach at Brown for two years before arriving at Harvard. "By the end of the season Brown, Cornell and Penn could all be in the Top 20 nationally. We can't sit back and watch it happen."