STORY LINES:
• The Cornell wrestling team will have its final tuneup for Ivy League competition with its most prominent EIWA rival (Lehigh) and continues one of its oldest series (Lock Haven) this weekend.
• The Big Red will visit the seventh-ranked Mountain Hawks on Saturday, Jan. 21 before returning home to meet Lock Haven the following afternoon at the Friedman Wrestling Center.
• Sunday's contest will be available on the Ivy League Digital Network and locally on 1160 ESPN Ithaca with Will LeBlond on the call.
• At 5-2, Cornell continues its dual match schedule that sees three of its final four non-league foes ranking among the top 25 before it attempts to claim an unprecedented 15th consecutive Ivy League title.
• The Big Red began that stretch with a 24-18 win over No. 25 Drexel and a 25-11 loss to No. 9 Missouri this past weekend at home.
• He won three of his four matches by bonus points, including two falls, and controlled the final over No. 6 Nolan Boyd of Oklahoma State 5-2, handing Boyd his third straight defeat against the two-time national champion after giving Dean his lone loss of 2015-16.
• Senior Gabe Dean, a leading candidate for the Hodge Trophy, has dominated all season long and has won 13 of his 19 matches this season by fall with seven victories over wrestlers ranked in the top 20 — including six bonus point wins.
• He enters the weekend with 136 career wins, good for sixth place all-time at Cornell, and can move to fifth and surpass four-time NCAA champion Dake for fifth with a weekend sweep.
• The Big Red has big goals — Cornell is eyeing yet another top five team effort at NCAAs and has a number of wrestlers with national championship and All-America aspirations.
• Dean, along with 2015 NCAA finalist and two-time All-American Brian Realbuto, as well as 2016 All-American Dylan Palacio, headline an experienced and talented lineup.
• Palacio made his return to the lineup this past weekend after missing the first semester and picked up a victory at 165 pounds.
• Two of Palacio, Taylor Simaz (157) or Brandon Womack (165) will make up the starting lineup at the two middle weights.
• In addition, two-time NCAA qualifier Mark Grey (133) and 2016 NCAA qualifier Joey Galasso (149) join first-year starters Noah Baughman (125) and Will Koll (141) in the regular lineup.
• Senior Craig Scott and 2016 NCAA qualifier Jeramy Sweany are competing for the top spot at heavyweight, while Honis and Owen Scott are jockeying at 197.

THE STREAKS:
• Cornell has won 10 consecutive EIWA team titles, the longest streak in conference history.
• Head coach Rob Koll's teams have racked up 14 Ivy League titles in a row, the longest title streak in any sport in conference history.
• Cornell has won 73 consecutive Ivy League dual meets dating back to the 2001-02 campaign.
• The Big Red has crowned at least one EIWA champion in each of the last 15 seasons and in 25 of the last 26 years.
• The Big Red is 52-1 (.981) in its last 53 duals against current EIWA competitors dating back to 2010-11.
• Cornell is 91-4-1 (.953) in dual meet action against current EIWA teams dating back to 2004-05, including 83-0 against teams other than Lehigh.
• Cornell has placed in the top five at the NCAA championships in six of the last eight seasons and in the top 10 in 12 of the last 14 years (nine straight).
• Cornell is 99-22-1 (.816) in dual meet competition in the last seven seasons.
• The Big Red is 39-6 (.867) in its last 45 home duals dating back to the 2009-10 season.
• Big Red wrestling has won 70 consecutive dual meets against unranked teams dating back to the beginning of the 2007-08 season.
• Cornell has won 32 straight meets against New York state opponents.
• The Big Red has claimed a record five consecutive New York State team titles.

ABOUT LEHIGH:
• Lehigh brings a 7-1 dual meet record into Saturday's matchup against the Big Red, including a 3-0 record at home.
• The Mountain Hawks have won three straight since their only loss of the season, a 30-10 defeat at No. 2 Penn State on Dec. 4.
• Lehigh is 5-0 against EIWA opponents and has outscored its foes 152-25 on the season (average of 30-5) entering Friday night's home dual against Penn.
• Eight wrestlers enter the week ranked in the top 20 in the most recent Intermat poll, including six ranked in the top 11.
• Both Jordan Kutler (No. 5 at 157) and Ryan Preisch (No. 6 at 174) are ranked in All-America range, while four other Mountain Hawks expect to be national contenders.
• The Mountain Hawks have finished second to the Big Red at the EIWA championships in six of the last eight seasons.
• Ninth-year head coach Pat Santoro, a three-time EIWA Coach of the Year, has directed Lehigh to a 120-38-1 record and coached up 18 All-Americans.

THE CORNELL-LEHIGH SERIES:
• Lehigh leads the all-time series 60-31-3, though Cornell has had the better of it recently.
• Cornell has won five of the last six duals against its EIWA rival.
• The series began in 1910, a 5-2 Big Red victory in Ithaca.
• Lehigh snapped a five-match Cornell win streak in the series last season with a convincing 25-13 victory over the shorthanded Big Red.

LAST TIME VS. LEHIGH:
• Sixth-ranked Lehigh took advantage of the absence of Cornell's two top-ranked wrestlers and snapped the Big Red's 47-match EIWA win streak with a 25-13 win on Jan. 23, 2016 at the Friedman Wrestling Center.
• Lehigh earned 11 team points between a forfeit at 133 due to a Nahshon Garrett injury and a technical fall win at 184 after Cornell used John Jay Chavez, a 165-pounder, instead of undefeated Gabe Dean against No. 3 Nathaniel Brown.
• Despite the loss, Cornell pulled a pair of upsets and lost another tossup match by a single point.
• Junior Brian Realbuto, who has been ranked as high as No. 1 at 174 this season, earned a dominant major decision victory over Elliott Riddick at 174 for Cornell's lone bonus point victory of the day, while both Duke Pickett (165) and Owen Scott (197) earned victories over ranked wrestlers.
 
CORNELL, LEHIGH DOMINATE EIWA:
• Cornell and Lehigh have been the dominant programs in the EIWA for the last two decades, winning 17 of the last 18 championships.
• The Big Red has won 10 consecutive championship titles after the Mountain Hawks had won six of the previous seven crowns.
• The Big Red's 24 team titles ranks behind only Lehigh's 34, while its 151 individual titles is second only to the Mountain Hawks' 207.
• Head coach Rob Koll's team had its 47-match win streak against EIWA opponents snapped in last season's loss to Lehigh, but sports a 90-4-1 record against league opponents dating back to 2004-05, including 82-0 against opponents other than the Mountain Hawks.

ABOUT LOCK HAVEN:
• The Bald Eagles are off to a 5-5 dual meet start, including wins over Maryland (20-18) and George Mason (25-10).
• Lock Haven will visit Penn on Saturday prior to visiting the Big Red on Sunday.
• Heavyweight Thomas Haines is ranked among the top 20 entering the week and has a 22-2 record, while 141-pounder Ronnie Perry has also spent time in the national rankings and is 21-5.
• Also off to great starts are 149-pounder Kyle Shoop (23-12), 184-pounder Corey Hazel (23-7) and 197-pounder Tristan Sponseller (20-3).
• Fourth-year head coach Scott Moore has made an impact on the Lock Haven program, sending nine wrestlers to the NCAAs in his first three seasons and has a 24-36 career dual meet record.

THE SERIES WITH LOCK HAVEN:
• Cornell leads the all-time series 9-4-1 in a series that dates back to the 1951-52 season.
• Lock Haven won that first meeting, 17-15, in Pennsylvania.
• The Big Red has won the last three duals between the teams, a 25-9 decision during the 1998-99 season, a 26-12 triumph in 2005-06 and a 22-13triumph in 2014-15.
• Nine of the 14 meetings came between 1990-99, with the Big Red going 5-2-1.

LAST TIME VS. LOCK HAVEN:
• Seniors Craig Eifert, Jesse Shanaman and Jace Bennett all picked up wins in their final regular season home dual to help Cornell knock off Lock Haven on Jan. 31, 2015 at Friedman Wrestling Center.
• The Big Red, starting backups at six weight classes, improved to 12-1 on the season with the 22-13 triumph.
• Cornell's four regular starters all took different paths to victory.
• Nahshon Garrett started the Big Red out right with an easy tech fall victory over Jake Field at 125 and Duke Pickett took home a 13-2 major decision over Tyler Wood at 174.
• On the other end of the spectrum, seniors Chris Villalonga and Jace Bennett both grinded out wins at 149 and 197, respectively.
• Villalonga held off 2014 NCAA qualifier Daniel Neff 3-2, while Bennett topped Phil Sprenkle 7-6.

INDIVIDUAL NOTES TO KNOW:
• Junior Brian Realbuto (103-17) became the 25th wrestler in Cornell history to reach 100 wins with a 3-2 decision over No. 4 Kyle Crutchmer of Oklahoma State on Dec. 16.
• Senior Gabe Dean enters the weekend with 136 career wins, good for sixth on the school's career list.
• With 13 falls and 18 bonus point wins in his 19-0 start, Dean has an amazing 5.368 NCAA dominance ranking - the school record for a season is Kyle Dake's 4.784 during his senior season (2012-13).
• Dean also ranks third all-time at Cornell in individual winning percentage (136-6, .958), behind only Dave Auble (.981, 51-1) and Dake (.972, 137-4).
• Dean joined Jace Bennett '15 as the second four-time New York state intercollegiate champion in school history and just the fourth overall in meet history.
• He became the third four-time Southern Scuffle champion, joining former Big Red great Kyle Dake and Minnesota's Cole Konrad.

TEAM NOTES TO KNOW:
• The Big Red has won 14 consecutive Ivy crowns and 73 straight Ivy matches.
• Cornell's 14 straight Ivy League titles build 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 holds a 32-match win streak against teams from New York dating back to 2004, including 18 consecutive at home.
• Cornell registered its fifth consecutive New York state intercollegiate title, matching Buffalo's run from 1974-78 as the longest in tournament history.
• Since the Friedman Wrestling Center opened in January of 2003, the Big Red is 67-14-1 in dual matches (.823).
• 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 in 2014 and now sports a 272-89-5 record in dual meets.
• The Big Red is 255-81-3 all-time against teams from New York state in its history — Army (11-17-1), Binghamton (7-0), Brooklyn Poly (2-0), Buffalo (7-4), Clarkson (2-0), Colgate (29-2), Columbia (88-13), Cortland (17-1), Geneseo (1-0), Hofstra (19-4), 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.

NEXT UP:
• Cornell kicks off Ivy League competition with three consecutive road duals beginning with visits to Brown (1 p.m.) and Harvard (6:30 p.m.) on Saturday, Jan. 28.
• The Big Red has a decisive 53-2 edge in the all-time dual meet series with Brown and has won 19 consecutive matchups.
• Cornell leads the all-time series against Harvard 54-9 with 15 consecutive dual meet wins against the Crimson.