The top teams and athletes wrestled to expectations during the first day of the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships (EIWA) at the famous Palestra on the campus of the Univ. of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pa.    It is the 100th anniversary of this storied college wrestling event, the oldest college wrestling conference and still one of the strongest qualifying events for the NCAA Championships.    Coming into the tournament, Lehigh was the event favorite, with Cornell and host Penn as serious contenders for the title. After the first day, which featured the preliminaries, quarterfinals and some consolations, all three teams wrestled with skill and power, showing why they may have separated themselves from the other teams in the conference.    "The level of this conference has continued to progress over the last 10 years," said Penn coach Roger Reina. "It is as exciting as it has ever been for the EIWA Conference, which has a big, proud tradition. This is the fastest moving conference in the nation. If you place in the top three in this tournament, you are at the national level."    Upsets were rare in the early going, as the top stars moved confidently into the brackets with early successes. The highest seed to go down in the preliminary round was a No. 6 seed,   At 125 pounds, Greg Pace of Brown stopped No. 6 Dan Hilt of Rutgers, 4-2. Also, at 184 pounds, No. 6 Daniel Walters of American dropped an injury default to Chris Pogue of Navy in 6:31    After the first round, Penn led the tournament, followed by Lehigh. Cornell was in seventh, mainly due to receiving an amazing seven byes in the opening session, not having much chance to score points.    The second round started with a bang, as a battle between No. 4 Brian Kirschbaum of Princeton and No. 5 Matt Eveleth of Penn banged heads in a close battle. Eveleth led by a point late in the match, and it appeared Kirschbaum had reversed Eveleth for backpoints to many. However, Eveleth held onto a leg, went with the action and maintained control, winning the bout 4-3. This win gave host Penn a  lift, and the crowd was charged up and loud.    Penn got another boost at 174, when No. 5 Brett Vanderveer edged No. 4 Amir Khan of Rutgers, 4-3. Again, it looked to some as if Khan scored points as time ended, perhaps even a pin, but the officials did not make the call. There was another explosive round of applause and boos from the audience.     Lehigh kept up the pressure, led by Brad Dillon at 174 pounds, who scored a pair of pins to give the Mountain Hawks clutch bonus points.    Cornell's chances improved with a big win over Penn at 184 pounds. No. 5 Jerry Rinelli of Cornell stopped No. 4 Paul Velekei of Penn, 2-1. Velekei, with a heavily bandaged knee from recent injury, did not score until Rinelli was penalized for stalling with just two seconds to go.    Going into the semifinals, Lehigh has nine in the "winner's bracket," Cornell has eight and Penn has seven. The score after the semifinals had Lehigh in first with 77.5 points, Penn in second with 60.5 and Cornell in third with 59 points.    The highest seed of the day to go down in defeat was No. 2 Nick Ciarcia of Brown, who was beaten by No. 7 Rudy Medini of Rutgers, 9-6 at 184 pounds.    The nation's top 133 pounder, Travis Lee of Cornell, had just one match today. He scored a 16-5 major decision over Dare Ajibade of Rutgers in the quarterfinals. Lee was a NCAA champion last year down at 125 pounds.    "It's interesting," said Lehigh coach Greg Strobel. "We have a partisan crowd here for Lehigh and Penn. We don't want to get caught up in the hype. We have to do our jobs. So far we have done our job. We've won where we are supposed to win. The plus is that we go some unexpected bonus points. We are where we have to be."    "I think we are wrestling well," said Penn coach Roger Reina. "We had some key wins, some guys we needed to step up. That included Brett Vanderveer at 157 and Matt Eveleth at 133. Matt lost to that kid two weeks ago and got his revenge. We have three in the wrestlebacks. We need them to drive forward through the consolations. Lehigh will be tough to beat."    "We didn't have many matches, with all the byes," said Cornell coach Rob Koll. "We have a lot of points to make up. Brian Bridge did not do well at 141 and we lost Matt Bogumil at heavyweight. They need to come back in the consolations for us to have a chance. The kids wrestled pretty well. We can wrestle well and lost this tournament. Lehigh always finds a way to get their opponents on their back."    After the consolations ended for the day, Lehigh had 78 points, 14.5 points ahead of Penn with 63.5 points. Cornell was close behind at 59 points. The next team was Rutgers in fourth, back at 40 points.    Semifinals pairings  125  No. 1 Matt Valenti of Penn vs. No. 4 Jeff Sato of Columbia  No. 2 Mario Stuart of Lehigh vs. No. 3 Mike Mormille of Cornell    133  No. 1 Travis Lee of Cornell vs. No. 5 Matt Eveleth of Penn  No. 2 Matt Ciasulli of Lehigh vs. No. 3 Bernard Gardner of Army    141  No. 1 Cory Cooperman of Lehigh vs. No. 4 Nate Gulosh of Navy  No. 2 Max Meltzer of Harvard vs. No. 3 Doug McGraw of Penn    149   No. 1 Jesse Jantzen of Harvard vs. No. 4 Matt Anderson of Lehigh  No. 2 Dustin Manotti of Cornell vs. No. 3 David Dies of Brown     157  No. 1 Philip Simpson of Army vs. No. 5 Brett Vanderveer of Penn  No. 2 Derek Zinck of Lehigh vs. No. 3 Scott Roth of Cornell    165  No. 1 Troy Letters of Lehigh vs. No. 4 Michael Barikian of Navy  No. 2 Joe Mazzurco of Cornell vs. No. 6 Chris Ressa of Rutgers    174  No. 1 Brad Dillon of Lehigh vs. No. 4 Tyler Baier of Cornell  No. 2 Andy Roy of Rutgers vs. No. 3 Matt Herrington of Penn    184  No. 1 Travis Frick of Lehigh vs. No. 5 Jerry Rinaldi of Cornell  No. 3 Luke Calvert of Navy vs. No. 7 Rudy Medini of Rutgers    197  No. 1 Matt Greenburg of Cornell vs. No. 5 Thayer Paxton of Navy  No. 2 Marcus Shontube of Penn vs. No. 3 Matt Cassidy of Lehigh    285  No. 1 Matt Feast of Penn vs. No. 4 Bode Ogunwole of Harvard  No. 2 Tanner Garrett of Navy vs. No. 3 Stanley Foster of East Stroudsburg    Team Standings after day one  1. Lehigh, 78  2. Penn, 63.5  3. Cornell, 59  4. Rutgers, 40  5. Navy, 37  6. Army, 34  7. Harvard, 27  8. Brown, 20  9. tie Columbia, 12.5  9. tie East Stroudsburg, 12.5  11. Princeton, 8  12. Franklin and Marshall, 6.5  13. American, 2.5