Led by three individual champions, Lehigh Univ. scored an impressive team victory at the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships (EIWA) team title at the Palestra on the campus of the Univ. of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pa., March 7.    Lehigh's individual champions were Troy Letters at 165 pounds, Brad Dillon at 174 pounds and Travis Frick at 184 pounds. Lehigh lost its first four gold-medal matches, before the big three won their titles in a row. Lehigh scored 145 points, 25 ahead of runner-up Penn.    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.    The Mountain Hawks put tremendous distance between themselves and rival Penn with a superb semifinal round, winning seven of nine matches. Penn placed four of their athletes into the finals and Cornell placed three athletes into the finals.    "Overall, we performed really well," said Lehigh coach Greg Strobel. "We had two people not meet their seeds, Cassidy and Cooperman. Everybody else matched or beat their seeds. We had all 10 place, which is hard to do, and we had nine semifinalists for the first time."    "I don't think we performed as well as we could have. You are always irritated when that happens. We have some things to work on. My confidence is up. We didn't peak at this tournament. We need to peak at the next one," said Strobel.    It became a battle for second place in the team race during the consolation rounds, as Cornell made up some ground on Penn. The difference between the two teams was just one point going into the gold-medal matches.    Cornell and Penn met three times in key third-place matches, with Cornell winning two of them. Scott Roth of Cornell beat Brett Vanderveer, 4-1 at 157 pounds. Matt Herrington of Penn beat Tyler Baier of Cornell at 174 pounds, 5-2. At 184 pounds, Cornell's Jerry Rinaldi stopped Penn's Paul Velekei, 11-2.    However, Penn was able to take three individual titles, with victories by Matt Valenti at 125 pounds, Doug McGraw at 141 pounds and Matt Feast at 285 pounds. Cornell had two champions, Travis Lee at 133 pounds and Matt Greenburg at 197 pounds. After the finals, Penn's margin ahead of Cornell was 1.5 points, 120 for Penn and 118.5 for Cornell.     "I was pleased with our group," said Penn coach Roger Reina. "We really stepped up. We wrestled through injury and pain. They showed tremendous heart the whole tournament. I am very pleased with the performance."    Lee, the 2003 NCAA champion, was named Outstanding Wrestler in the tournament, after he scored a 13-4 victory in the finals over Matt Ciasulli of Lehigh.    One of the pleasant surprises of the tournament was the performance of Rutgers, which placed fourth in the standings and had two championship finalists, both who were defeated in the finals. Rutgers scored 90 points, 23 ahead of the next team in the standings. Coach John Sacchi was named EIWA Coach of the Year.    A close team battle between military academies, the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Military Academy and Harvard, was decided in the finals.  Army had an individual champion in Phillip Simpson at 157 pounds and came in fifth at 67 points. Navy did not win in the finals, placing sixth with 66 points. Harvard's night ended with a title at 149 pounds from Jesse Jantzen, and was in seventh, at 64.5 points.    Jantzen won his third career EIWA title to end a strong career for Harvard. He is ranked No. 1 in the nation in his division with an undefeated record.    Besides the team standings and individual honors, the EIWA also qualified 39 wrestlers for the NCAA Div. I Championships in St. Louis, Mo.  The top three in each weight class earned automatic qualification to the NCAA meet, and the conference coaches selected the final nine qualifiers from the rest of the field.    Lehigh and Cornell led the pack with eight NCAA qualifiers, followed by Penn with seven. Harvard will bring four athletes to the NCAA Championships. Navy and Rutgers qualified three, and Columbia, Brown and Army had two qualifiers.    NCAA qualifiers  Lehigh, 8  Cornell, 8  Penn, 7  Harvard, 4  Navy, 3  Rutgers, 3  Columbia, 2  Brown, 2  Army, 2    Top three athletes in each weight class qualify for the NCAA championships, plus nine other wildcards.    EIWA Wildcards  Jeff Sato, Columbia, 125  Nate Gulosh, Navy, 141  Matt Anderson, Lehigh, 149  Brett Vanderveer, Penn, 157  Tyler Baier, Cornell, 174  Paul Velekei, Penn, 184  Nick Ciarcia, Brown, 184  Luke Calvert, Army, 184  Ramel Meeking, Rutgers, 275