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There might not be fun in the sun next weekend in Iowa, but the Cornell wrestling team would love to get on a plane and head west anyway. To get that opportunity, Cornell will need to get through Drexel on Sunday, Feb. 15 at 2 p.m. at Newman Arena in the opening match of the NWCA/Cliff Keen National Duals. Jeremy Menard will be calling the action on ESPN Ithaca (1160 AM/107.1 FM), with the match being broadcast free on the Ivy League Digital Network.

The Big Red won its 13th straight Ivy League title, an unprecedented run of success in the historic conference - no program has won more consecutive titles in the same sport in conference history. It extended its win streak to 68 dual meets against Ancient Eight foes dating back to the 2001-02 campaign with the 38-0 win over the Lions. 

The Big Red has wins over nationally ranked Oklahoma, North Carolina State, Edinboro and Lehigh, won its third consecutive New York State title, went a perfect 3-0 at the Journeymen/ASICS Northeast Duals, placed fifth at the Las Vegas Invitational without the services of four starters and was 2-0 at the Grapple at the Garden. The Big Red has done all that without its full lineup at any point this season. Eight starters remain ranked among the nation's top 20 wrestlers at their respective weight classes.

Sophomore Gabe Dean is nearly unanimously ranked No. 1 in the country at 184 pounds and remains among a handful of national title contenders at the weight after rolling through the Southern Scuffle, including pinning previous No. 1 Max Thomusseit of Pitt in the finals. Junior Nahshon Garrett, the defending national runner-up at 125 pounds, is ranked in the top three of every national poll and is 21-2 with seven wins over nationally ranked wrestlers, five by bonus wins. Senior Chris Villalonga is 20-2 this season at 149 pounds and is ranked seventh nationally.

A pair of sophomores, Brian Realbuto (157) and Dylan Palacio (165), are working their way back into the championship pictures at their respective weight class. Realbuto, who is recovering from an injury suffered at last season's NCAA tournament, made his first appearance of the season at the Scuffle and has gone 11-2 with three wins over ranked wrestlers. Palacio, who spent the fall with the Big Red men's soccer team, went 2-0 at the Grapple at the Garden and is 12-2 on the season thus far. Junior Duke Pickett, arguably the team's most improved wrestler, climbed into the Intermat top 20 last week at 174 pounds. He has posted a 23-4 record on the season. Defending EIWA champion Jace Bennett is second on the team in wins with his 29-7 record at 197, while 133-pounder Mark Grey is ranked 15th and has posted an impressive 14-5 season despite battling a number of injuries throughout the year.
 
THE STREAKS:
• Cornell is 85-14-1 (.855) in dual meet competition in the last six seasons.
• Cornell has won 68 consecutive Ivy League dual meets dating back to the 2001-02 campaign.
• The Big Red has won 42 straight duals against current EIWA competitors dating back to 2010-11.
• Cornell is 81-3-1 (.959) in dual meet action against current EIWA teams dating back to 2004-05, including 74-0 against teams other than Lehigh.
• The Big Red is 32-3 (.914) in its last 35 home duals dating back to the 2009-10 season.
• Big Red wrestling has won 61 consecutive dual meets against unranked teams dating back to the beginning of the 2007-08 season.
• Cornell has placed in the top five at the NCAA championships in five of the last six seasons and in the top 10 in 10 of the last 12 years.
• Cornell has won eight consecutive EIWA team totals, the longest streak in conference history.
• The Big Red has crowned at least one EIWA champion in each of the last 13 seasons and in 23 of the last 24 years.
• Cornell has won 27 straight meets against New York state opponents.
• Cornell has won six consecutive EIWA championships at 125 pounds (Troy Nickerson in 2009, 2010; Frank Perrelli in 2011, 2012; Nahshon Garrett in 2013, 2014), the most consecutive in one weight class by any school since Lehigh won at 177 pounds from 1974-81, a record eight straight seasons.
 
ABOUT DREXEL:
• With a 7-10 record heading into Friday's home dual match with Hofstra, Drexel is looking to surpass last season's win total (7-15).
• The Dragons feature nationally-ranked Kevin Devoy at 133 pounds (No. 16) and his impressive 28-4 record on the year. Devoy and Cornell's Mark Grey will meet for a possible No. 2 seed at the EIWA championships. The two met last season in the conference semifinals, with Devoy earning a 5-1 win.
• Matt Cimato also has surpassed the 20-win mark with a 21-13 record at 149, as has Stephen Loiseau is 22-12 at 184 pounds.
• Former Big Red assistant coach Matt Azevedo is in his fourth season as head coach of Drexel and sports a 29-47 record entering the weekend.

THE SERIES WITH DREXEL:
• Cornell leads the all-time series 7-1-1dating back to the 1977-78 season when the teams first met, a 28-9 Big Red win in Ithaca.
• The Big Red won the first three duals and has gone 4-0-1 in its last five.
• Drexel's only win over the Big Red came in a 22-14 Dragons victory in Princeton, N.J. exactly 29 years ago from this year's matchup, on Feb. 15, 1986.

LAST TIME VS. DREXEL:
• The Big Red shut out Drexel 40-0 in the first match of the 2012 Journeymen Northeast Duals.
• Top-ranked Kyle Dake earned a first period fall at 165, Nahshon Garrett (125) won by tech fall and three other Big Red grapplers earned bonus points in their wins.
• The most impressive win of the day may have come from unranked Jace Bennett, who ran through No. 19 Brandon Palik for a 13-2 major decision at 197.
• Mike Nevinger earned a 1-0 decision at 141 over Frank Climato thanks to an escape point.
 
CORNELL AT THE NATIONAL DUALS:
• Ths is Cornell's 13th straight appearance in the NWCA National Duals, with the Big Red winning the event during the 2010-11 season.
• Cornell has made 14 overall appearances in the event with a 26-21 record
• The Big Red has faced Arizona State (0-1); Boise State (0-1); Cal State Bakersfield (1-0); Central Michigan (1-0); Cleveland State (1-0); Hofstra (1-1); Illinois (0-1); Indiana (1-0); Iowa (0-3); Iowa State (2-0); Maryland (1-0); Michigan (2-1); Michigan State (0-1); Minnesota (1-4); Missouri (2-0); Nebraska (1-0); Northern Iowa (1-0); Northwestern (0-1); Ohio (1-0); Ohio State (3-2); Oklahoma (2-1); Oklahoma State (0-2); Penn State (1-2); Purdue (1-0); Virginia Tech (2-0); Wisconsin (1-0).
• A year ago, the Big Red advanced to the finals with wins over No. 16 Virginia Tech (34-0) and No. 11 Oklahoma (23-20), before falling to top-ranked Minnesota (24-15).
• Only the elite programs in the country have won the NWCA National Duals, with Oklahoma State and Minnesota each winning eight, Iowa claiming six, Penn State winning two, and both Cornell and Iowa State winning one each.
 
RECAPPING THE HOFSTRA & COLUMBIA DUALS:
• It's lucky 13 for Cornell wrestling. The Big Red capped off a perfect 2015 Ivy League campaign with a 38-0 win at Columbia, sweeping through the Lions like they have their conference counterparts for more than a decade.
• The win extended Cornell's win streak over Ancient Eight foes to 68 matches over more than 13 seasons.
• On a day where just about everything went right, Cornell won close decisions, had five total falls in two duals - including its earlier 41-7 win over Hofstra - and  had 11 of its 18 wins on the day come by way of bonus point triumphs.
• With the wins, Cornell captured its 42nd straight against EIWA win, 61st consecutive against unranked foes and now 27 straight against New York state opponents.
• It was the Big Red's 12th in a row over the Pride and its 29th straight against the Lions.
• With championship season around the corner, Cornell head wrestling coach Rob Koll spent the week working on picking up falls knowing bonus points could be the difference between a strong finish and an EIWA or NCAA team title.
• The work paid off - the Big Red picked up four falls and seven total bonus wins on its way to a 41-7 win over Hofstra earlier in the afternoon at the Mack Physical Education Center.
• Then, with a chance to clinch the Ivy title outright before half the league teams wrestled their second conference dual, didn't lose a match in a dominant performance heading into next weekend's NWCA National Duals.
 
EIWA RANKINGS:
• Eight of Cornell's 10 starters are ranked among the top four in their respective weights in the latest EIWA rankings.
• As a team, Cornell sits at the top, ahead of Lehigh and Bucknell.
• Ivy League foes Penn (No. 4) and Columbia (No. 6) are ranked among the top six teams.
• Cornell has five wrestlers at the top of their weight classes: Nahshon Garrett at 125, Chris Villalonga at 149, Brian Realbuto at 157, Duke Pickett at 174 and Gabe Dean at 184.
• In addition, Mark Grey is fourth at 133, Dylan Palacio is second at 165 and Jace Bennett is third at 197.
 
NOTES TO KNOW:
• With a win this weekend, the Big Red would improve to 15-1 on the season in dual meets. That total is the most since Cornell went 16-2-1 during the 1998-99 campaign and the fifth-most in school history.
• Head coach Rob Koll became the ninth Big Red coach in any sport to reach 250 career victories with a sweep at the Grapple at the Garden. He now sports a 258-81-5 record in dual meets.
• Cornell wrestlers had a strong summer - Nahshon Garrett won the 2014 University Freestyle Nationals, while Gabe Dean was the junior freestyle champion at 84kg/185 pounds to earn a spot on the junior world team.
• The Big Red has had at least one individual NCAA champion in six of the last seven years and at least one finalist in seven straight campaigns.
• The Big Red has had 11 different wrestlers win a combined 16 NCAA titles. Kyle Dake is one of three wrestlers to claim four national crowns (doing it in four different weight classes), while Dave Auble and Travis Lee won two titles each.
• Cornell has had 36 wrestlers earn a total of 68 All-America honors, including 49 total All-Americans since 2002.
• Since Rob Koll took over prior to the 1993-94 campaign, Cornell has had 134 NCAA qualifiers, 48 All-Americans and 11 national champions. In the first 63 seasons of the NCAA tournament, the Big Red had 82 total NCAA qualifiers, 16 All-Americans and five national champions.
• The Big Red's eight NCAA qualifiers took care of business against wrestlers who didn't make it to NCAAs a year ago. The eight went 152-0 against wrestlers who did not qualify for the 2014 NCAAs, with 44 pins, 27 tech falls and 25 major decisions. In all, 63 percent of those wins were bonus victories.
• The Big Red has won 13 consecutive Ivy crowns and 68 straight Ivy matches.
• Cornell's 13 straight Ivy League titles builds on the Big Red's record of consecutive Ivy titles by the same team in a sport. The wrestling team has won three more than Cornell had in men's gymnastics (from 1967-68 to 1976-77) and men's lacrosse (1973-74 to 1982-83), as well as Princeton in men's lacrosse (1994-95 to 2003-04). 
• Every four-year member of the Cornell wrestling team who has enrolled since 1980 has won at least one Ivy League title during their career.
• The Big Red has crowned at least one EIWA champion in each of the last 13 seasons and in 23 of the last 24 years. Only Lehigh, with 15 straight years with an Eastern champion, has a longer current streak.
• Cornell has had at least three individual EIWA champions in six consecutive seasons.
• In the last five seasons, Cornell wrestlers have won EIWA titles at each weight except 285 pounds. The last heavyweight to stand at the top of the podium was Seth Charles in 1999.
• The Big Red is 252-81-3 all-time against teams from New York state in its history — Army (11-17-1), Binghamton (7-0), Brooklyn Poly (2-0), Buffalo (6-4), Clarkson (2-0), Colgate (29-2), Columbia (87-13), Cortland (17-1), Geneseo (1-0), Hofstra (18-4), Ithaca (12-3), Long Island (1-0), Manhattan (1-0), NYU (2-0), Queens (1-0), RPI (2-0), RIT (7-0-1), St. Lawrence (0-1), Syracuse (42-35-1), Union (2-1) and Wagner (2-0).
• The Big Red's coaching staff has combined for 11 All-America accolades and three individual NCAA titles at a total of two different weight classes as collegiate athletes.
 
TALL IVY:
• Since Rob Koll took over the Cornell program in 1993, the Big Red has gone 101-8-1 (.923) in its 110 Ivy League matches.
• Over that same span, Penn is next best at 87-20-1, followed by Brown (45-62-1).
• Rounding out the field is Columbia 40-66, Harvard 35-72-1 and Princeton 14-94.
• Dating back to the 2002-03 season (13 years), Cornell's perfect 65-0 record laps the competition. Penn is second-best at 47-16, followed by Columbia 29-32, Brown 19-43-1, Harvard 17-45-1 and Princeton 11-52.
• Current Cornell wrestlers are 129-39 in Ivy League dual matches (.768).

NEXT UP:
• A win over Drexel would propel the Big Red into the quarterfinal round beginning on Feb. 21 in Iowa City, Iowa.