Baria (141 lbs.) won his match, as well, gaining a 10-4 decision on Eric Marcotulli. Harvard won six of its 10 pairings, with Jones’ pin the final nail in the coffin.

“It was good for the whole team,” Baria said. “The win was really due to a better atmosphere within the team. Guys were a lot more excited on the bench, and it proved that we’re capable to beat another good team. We’re capable of doing it. It’s opened up our vision.”

Although the obvious take-home message from the weekend will surely be that first “W,” Weiss is quick to put things in perspective.

“It was good, but we know that we’re always going to be a better tournament team, geared towards the end of the year,” he said. “But what I liked here was that we were in the match. The guys knew it the whole time.”

The Crimson now looks forward to a busy weekend in which it will play host to Columbia at 4 p.m. and Sacred Heart at 6 p.m. on Friday. On Saturday, Harvard welcomes Cornell and East Stroudsburg at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., respectively.

PENN 28, HARVARD 15

Despite gritty wins by Preston, Jones, and DeNunzio, the Crimson fell 28-15 to Penn on Friday afternoon, with much of the attention centering on an epic, double-overtime heavyweight match between the Quakers’ No. 6 Matt Feast and sophomore No. 7 Bode Ogunwole.

The nationally ranked duel featured a scoreless first frame before an Ogunwole escape drew first blood at the outset of the second period. With 1:40 remaining, Feast then tied the score at 1-1 with another escape, taking it to overtime. In the first period of bonus wrestling, yet another escape gave Ogunwole a 2-1 advantage before Feast countered in the same fashion.

The same exact sequence occurred as the match reached its third and fourth tiebreakers.

Finally, at a 3-3 stalemate and both overtimes exhausted, Feast was awarded the fourth, critical point on the strength of 34 seconds of riding time over Ogunwole.

The conclusion marked another chapter in an ongoing saga between the two titans, first showcased at Midlands this year in December, a 3-2 Feast victory which relegated Ogunwole to a third place showing.

“Bode keeps getting closer,” Weiss said. “It was a very good match, well-wrestled. And you couldn’t get much closer than it really was.”

“Bode knows he’s in on him,” he added. “Hopefully, they’ll face off one more time at the end of the year in Eastern finals.”

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.