Wrestling Postview: Penn State Opens the 2022 Season with Two Wins

The scariest thing in the Spooky Nook complex this weekend was Penn State’s National Champion-laden lineup.

In Dual Meet #1, against overmatched Sacred Heart, the Nittany Lions won 9 out 10 bouts, each with Bonus Points. They won the takedown battle 36-2 and secured two Major Decisions, three Technical Falls and four Pins en route to a 47-3 final score.

In Dual Meet #2, Oregon State fared slightly better with a lineup that featured four wrestlers ranked in the Top 33 by Intermat. Still, the Lions won 8 out of 10 bouts, four with Bonus: one Major, two Tech Falls and one Pin. They won the takedown battle 24-10 and finished with a 32-7 team victory.

Recap Links

In an effort to minimize the bandwith required to post recaps this season, we’re experimenting a bit. The above recap charts contain key information I personally like to see when reviewing dual results, some of which is not easily found or tightly packaged by the regularly-posting sites. I was able to gather the takedown intel & bout score-at-time-of-pin from Bubba’s play-by-play scorekeeping in Cari’s Preview + Open Thread, and I think, now that the spreadsheet is organized, it should be fairly low-maintenance to produce. Thanks again to Bubba for his volunteer work.

In further experimentation, here are a few links to recaps from others on the PSU Wrestling beat:

• GoPSUSports, Sacred Heart
• GoPSUSports, Oregon State
• Nittany Nation, Clay Sauertieg
• The Daily Collegian, Zach Allen
• Center Daily Times, Nate Cobler
• State College Dot Com, Gabriel Herman, Sacred Heart
• State College Dot Com, Gabriel Herman, Oregon State

Sunday Tourney Action

As Coach Sanderson indicated at Media Day on November 8, the team entered a few wrestlers into open tourneys on Sunday, and the Lions crowned two champions at the Journeymen Tourney at Spooky Nook:

All-American Michael Beard, who by all accounts is involved in a very tight competition with new transfer and 2x AA, Max Dean, went 3-0 on the day, with two Majors and a Tech Fall:

In so doing, he walked away with a lovely hammer trophy!

In New York, a number of Lions are competing in the Bearcat Open, and Matt Lee has made the finals at 165 pounds:

If any enterprising members of our BSD Wrestle Community are browsing this afternoon and catch that action, could you post results and/or takery in the comments please?

The Takery

Overall, a quite fine start to what is certain to be a quite fine season. I’m not sure we learned much more from this weekend other than what Coach Cael told us we would: that our guys would showcase maximum effort.

But still, how great was it to get our eyes on some of these known & lesser-known hammers?

Next up is Army in Rec Hall, this Thursday, November 18, 8p on Lionvision. Then it’s a two-week break until an away-home split weekend with Pennsylvania rivals Lehigh & UPenn, on 12/3 & 12/5.

(Special thanks to our photographer friends, Sam Janicki and Tony Rotundo for allowing BSD to use their gorgeous photos. Please consider browsing their catalogs and purchasing their photos directly from their websites or supporting them with a cash donation. You can do so for Sam here, and for Tony here.)