Jantzen’s growing list of accomplishments continues to astound.

“The guy’s amazing,” Weiss said. “He’s got his eyes on a bigger goal.”

El-Hayek was unable to equal his teammates’ success. As the top seed, he was upset in Saturday’s semifinal by fifth seed and eventual champion Dan Hyman of Lehigh.

“After I lost that match, I pretty much knew that my career would end the following day,” El-Hayek said. “I went out and wrestled my last two matches and tried to leave everything on the mat.”

El-Hayek, who took a year off after his sophomore year to focus on training, has matured into the ultimate team leader, Weiss and Jantzen said.

After being upset in the semifinals last year, El-Hayek was able to swallow the loss and come back to finish third, knowing that his team needed the points to win the EIWAs. This year, with Harvard out of contention for the title, only pride was on the line.

El-Hayek, though, downed Army’s T.J. Grider in the consolation semis, 4-2 (he had beaten Grider, 6-2, in the first round), and Columbia’s Steve Popovitch, 6-2, for third place.

O’Donnell showed similar resiliency in his consolation matches, and his third-place finish was good enough to earn him a bid to Albany.

After losing to Penn’s Josh Henson—Joe’s twin brother— in the semis, O’Donnell avenegd an earlier loss to Cornell’s Scott Roth, winning 6-5.

“Every time I’ve wrestled him, he’s scored first,” O’Donnell said. “This time, I took him down first and that made the difference.”

Down a point in the third and final period, Roth tied the score with 15 seconds remaining. O’Donnell was able to escape from Roth with five seconds left for the victory.

Despite Harvard’s fourth-place finish, Weiss was pleased with his team’s performance.

“By winning the EIWAS last year, the bar’s been set pretty high,” Weiss said. He pointed to the fact that four Harvard wrestlers—Rechul, O’Donnell, Lee and freshman 197-pounder Jonas Corl—all avenged regular-season losses.

“We’re peaking at the right time,” Weiss said. “We gear our whole program to placing people in the NCAAs.”