Cornell Has Higher Hopes for Easterns and Nationals Calling Cornell's wrestling season a roller coaster is probably an understatement. The Big Red fought tough teams like Hofstra and Minnesota and came out winners. Cornell beat Columbia on Feb. 4 to win the Ivy League championship, its 10th in a row, and it finished the Ivy season undefeated. The National Wrestling Coaches Association/Cliff Keen National Duals on Feb. 12 were a different story: Cornell beat Purdue before losing to then-No. 7 Illinois in the final. "I don't think we wrestled well or wrestled poorly," Cornell Coach Rob Koll said. I don't think we match up well with [Illinois]. We needed one wrestler to step up and wrestle above his head and it just didn't happen. We knocked off Minnesota right off the bat, so once you do that your expectations are high ... we ended up 11-1 and won the Ivys. I am really pleased with the season so far. Minnesota is the top ranked team in the country. The Ivy League title was the 13th of Koll's Cornell career. Cam Simaz, a Cornell senior, said winning the Ivy League title was "a steppingstone for us at this point." Then, referring to the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association championships, he said: "It's one of the steps to a national title and E.I.W.A. title. I feel ecstatic that we did it, but it is one of those things you have to do to achieve our goals. The Red, ranked No. 6, have high hopes for a number of their individual wrestlers going into nationals, especially Simaz, Koll said. "Cam Simaz has been just about perfect," he said. He had only one default, and that is his only blemish where he was winning and tore his hamstring. He had to default out and was out for about a month. Other than the injury, he is undefeated this year. Last year Simaz was named the Ivy League wrestler of the year, won N.C.A.A. all-American honors and won the E.I.W.A. title at 197 pounds for the third year in a row. He is third in Cornell career wins with 136. This year's E.I.W.A. championships are scheduled for March 3 and 4 in Princeton, N.J. During the E.I.W.A., Lehigh, Penn and American: Those guys are going to be our biggest competitors. Simaz said. Lehigh has really been a good team during the E.I.W.A. for the last few years. During nationals, it will be the traditional teams such as Iowa, Oklahoma State and Minnesota that are going to be good. The Big Ten as always will be a threat at nationals. Cornell seems prepared to face the challenges ahead of them. "To be honest, in the sport of wrestling, for better or worse, almost everything you do is in the last tournament," Koll said. The reality is, it doesn't matter how I feel right now; how I am going to feel about the season is going to come down to the next 24 days. Haley Velasco is a staff writer for The Daily Sun, Cornell University's independent daily newspaper.