Wrestling Recap: No. 1 Penn State 42, Bucknell 3.

Well, that was a bit of snoozer.

Penn State went on the road to Bucknell for the first time in program history on Friday night and walked away with a cozy 42-3 victory.

The Nittany Lions appeared to be unenthusiastic about the dual and slept walk through a number of bouts, while the Bison looked very comfortable playing the edge.

Nevertheless, Penn State walked away unscathed and looking good heading into Sunday’s Rec Hall showdown with Lehigh.

125

Devin Schnupp?

Devin Schnupp!

Schnupp picked up his first career dual victory with 5-2 victory over Geo Barzone. The sophomore used an early takedown to take a 2-1 lead and an escape in the third made it 3-2. He then iced the bout with a late takedown for the 5-2 win in front of a largely pro-PSU crowd.

133

Roman Bravo-Young came up just short of a tech fall with a 21-7 major decision win over David Campbell.

RBY was outstanding from the jump and controlled the entire bout against Campbell, who looked more than comfortable hanging out near the edge of the mat.

The true freshman remains undefeated on the year and should do so at least until January’s South Scuffle.

141

Nick Lee roughed up Matt Kolonia to the tune of 15-5 major decision. Much like Campbell, Kolonia seemed disinterested in engaging or working up from bottom while Lee looked for every which way to turn him and pick up back points, to no avail.

149

Brady Berge made his dual debut in impressive fashion.

The redshirt freshman used a wide array of attacks and go behinds to earn a 21-6 tech fall victory over Joey Schiele in the third period. Berge appears to have won the starting spot after the Keystone Classic but I would expect to see a bit more of Jarod Verkleeren before the year ends.

157

For a while, it looked like Jason Nolf was going to sleepwalk to win against Zach Hartman.

Nolf led just 7-5 after the first period, even conceding a takedown to the freshman from Belle Vernon, PA.

Hartman even rode Nolf tough to start the second before giving up the escape.

Then Nolf got angry.

He pancaked Hartman to his back and earned the fall at the 3:49 mark.

165

One note to come out of Friday’s dual was the absence of Vincenzo Joseph.

There was no word on why Joseph was out or how long we can expect him to be out for, but Bo Pipher got the start in his place and fell to D.J. Hollingshead in a tight 6-5 decision that was separated only by a riding time point.

174

Mark Hall looked a bit more active tonight than in some of his previous matches this year.

He worked a nice duck series (shocking, I know) for a pair of takedowns and even sprinkled in a nice misdirection single at one point en route to a 20-7 major decision over Nick “Don’t call me Gwen” Stephani.

184

Shak just continues to be an absolute destroyer of worlds.

He immediately took down Bucknell’s Kyle Inlander, cradled him up and ended the match in 31 seconds.

He’s still yet to concede a point this year and has only been out of the first period once.

197

Bo Nickal, like Nolf, started a bit slowly but pulled away for a 16-6 major decision victory over Drew Phipps.

Nickal seemed a bit perturbed by the Phipps to end the match as the latter appeared to just be hanging out waiting for time to tick away.

285

Anthony Cassar is god damn freak of nature.

Cassar took a bit of time, sized up his opponent Brandon Stokes and then exploded for a blast double, taking Stokes directly to his back and securing the fall at the :32 mark.

The Takery

There really wasn’t too much to take away from this one.

Penn State looked a bit disinterested at times and while I’m happy to grow the sport at some small PA schools, next time the PA guy and table workers need to be a bit more on top of things if Penn State is going to go back to Lewisburg.

Too many times names were announced incorrectly and scores/times were screwed up.

From an on-mat perspective, Nolf looked a bit sluggish but I wouldn’t read into a much.

It’ll be interesting to see if Joseph goes on Sunday and, if not, how long he’s out for.

We should also get to see just how good Cassar is as he squares off with top-10 ranked Jordan Wood.

See y’all Sunday!