Since early November, the Harvard grapplers have been competing against some of the top contenders in the nation, from its travels to the Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas and the Aloha Classic in Hawaii, to more recent match-ups against Ivy strongholds such as Penn and Cornell.

Yet, while the team has certainly established itself as a threat in the collegiate circuit, the challenge is not over. The grapplers face their most important battle this weekend, as they travel to West Point for the EIWA tournament in hopes of earning a berth to Nationals, held later this month.

"I think we're ready," said Coach Jay Weiss. "We have a great shot for pushing guys to the finals."

Coming off a dual meet season hampered by injuries, the Crimson used the two weeks since their last home meet against Brown and B.U. to get everyone healthy and individualize their training. The team goes to the tournament in full force, with a strong lineup led by senior tricaptains Dustin DeNunzio, Joel Friedman, and junior tri-captain Fran Volpe.

Last year, the team finished fourth over-all, the highest in the school's history. And although they are ranked fourth going into this year's tournament, they hope to-and are certainly capable of-exceeding last year's performance. Ranked ahead of them are Lehigh, Penn and Cornell, respectively. Though all pose strong competition for the Crimson, Coach Weiss considers the Quakers especially tough.

"Penn has a lot of depth and balance from top to bottom," he said.

Individually, the Crimson heads to Army with six wrestlers in the top eight for their respective weight classes in the preliminary rankings (as of Feb. 28).

At 133 pounds, sophomore Matt Picsic, who rounded out an outstanding freshman campaign by finishing third at EIWAs last season, goes into the weekend ranked fifth. He looks to avenge his earlier loss to Livio DiRubbo of Brown, as well as continue his victorious ways against Nate Rupp of Cornell and Nick Fokas of Columbia.

DeNunzio-who was EIWA champion last year before going on to earn All-American at Nationals-was given a No. 1 ranking in the 141-pound weight class. His toughest competition will come from Ben New of Cornell whom he handed a 7-2 loss last month, and Mark Piotrowsky of Penn whom he has already beaten twice this season by scores of 5-3 and 10-5.

In the 149-pound weight class, Friedman, who took last year off but wrestled for a NCAA spot in 1996, is seeded fourth. His opponents include three wrestlers that were some of his toughest matches earlier this year: Brett Matter of Penn, Ryan Bernholz of Lehigh and Shawn Bradley of Cornell.

Junior Kevin Kurtz, who has emerged this season as one of Harvard's leading superstars, takes a No. 2 seeding behind Chris Ayres in the 157-pound weight class.

At 165 pounds, junior Joey Killar-who finished fifth in EIWAs last year-finally returns after missing most of the dual meet season because of injury. Killar's domination during the first part of the season has earned him a No. 3 ranking, and he looks to overtake Travis Doto of Lehigh and Rick Springman of Penn for a trip to Nationals.

Volpe, whose strong third place finish at EIWAs last season earned him one of only six wildcard spots for Nationals, has a fourth place ranking in the 184-pound weight class.

Also taking a No. 4 ranking is 197-pound sophomore Brad Soltis. With a tremendous performance this season, Soltis has really come forth as one of the Crimson's top wrestlers. Although he lost to No. 1 Andrei Rodzianko of Penn, Soltis has already beaten No. 3 Rob Rohn of Lehigh 13-9, and lost a close overtime dual to No. 2 Bob Greenleaf.

Rounding out the lineup for the Crimson are three others who have been an integral part of the team this season and whose threat at the tournament this weekend is not to be underestimated. Sophomore Kevin El-Hayek will wrestle at his first Easterns in the 125-pound weight class.