At 157 pounds, junior Kevin Kurtz brought the Crimson within four with his thrilling overtime victory over 11th-ranked Yoshi Nakamura, who leads his team in wins (26) and takedowns (69). Losing 1-3 going into the final minute, Nakamura forced the match into overtime but still met with defeat after a commanding takedown by Kurtz to end the match.
"I was trying to concentrate on having fun out there," said Kurtz. "I got up early in the match and decided not to worry about winning."
Sophomore Adam Truitt came up with a terrific win over Ryan Slack in the 174-pound weight class. After a scoreless first period, Truitt got the better of Slack in the second and went on to a 4-2 victory.
At 184 pounds, Volpe went up 2-0 in the first period, and never looked back. He extended his lead throughout the next two periods, resulting in an impressive 53 win.
Yet it was the final match of this grueling day that proved to be one of the highlights of the weekend for Harvard. Although it gave Penn three points on the scoreboard, Harvard got the real victory as Rechul forced Penn's 9th-ranked Bandele Adeniyi-Bada to fight down to the wire. Though he lost the match 5-6, Rechul's stellar performance against a top ranked wrestler--who has a 21-3 record and 59 takedowns--sent a strong message to his Ivy foes, giving them plenty to worry about this season and in seasons to come.
"Dawid did an outstanding job and showed some really smart wrestling," Weiss said. "He made a huge adjustment overnight."
Closing out the weekend, his match provided a moral victory around which the team can now rally. The two schools meet again at EIWA's in several weeks and next time, Adeniyi-Bada and his Quaker team might not be so lucky.
But for now the team is excited to wrestle its first home matches of the season this weekend at the Malkin Athletic Center. The wrestlers will have a busy weekend, facing Boston College and Cornell on Friday and UMass-Lowell and Cornell on Saturday.
"We wrestled really hard but we are not at 100 percent," said DeNunzio. "[This weekend] we plan to go in there and dominate."