LINCOLN, Nebraska — All season long, the stars of the Penn State wrestling team have talked up the capabilities of one of their more unheralded teammates — reserve 174-pound redshirt freshman Matt Brown.
They’ve known for a long time what Brown can do — how he pushes them, helps them get better and what he’s physically made of.
On Friday, fans inside the NU Coliseum caught a firsthand glimpse of the Penn State redshirt freshman — all 173.6 pounds of him — as Brown beat a wrestler with a three-year experience edge while giving up nearly 24 pounds to Nebraska’s James Nakashima at 197 pounds.
Brown won an improbable upset 2-1 to help spark the Nittany Lions to a dominant 31-6 win over the No. 7 Corn-huskers. The win put Penn State atop the Big Ten Conference, tied with No. 4 Minnesota.
Sure, Brown is used to wrestling guys much bigger than him in practice. He tangles with Penn State 184-pounder Quentin Wright and 197-pounder Morgan McIntosh often, but until he filled in for McIntosh Friday, Brown had never wrestled two weight classes up in competition.
“Coach Cael (Sanderson) and Coach (Casey) Cunningham just focused on moving the guy, getting him tired and working his head,” Brown told the Penn State Sports Network after the dual. “And I was able to do that and I got fortunate.”
Brown escaped in the third to tie the bout at 1-1, but by that point, Nakashima was gassed.
The Nebraska senior laboriously dragged himself back to the center of the mat after resets. Each time, Brown — who popped up to his feet and hustled back — was waiting for him.
Already with a stalling warning against him, Nakashima didn’t have enough energy left to attack Brown. Meanwhile, Brown shot numerous times but couldn’t connect on any of his takedown attempts. Nakashima was hit with his second stalling call late and Brown won on the stalling point.
“Yeah, I did feel it,” Brown said when asked if he felt Nakashima wearing down. “And when you feel that you start getting more momentum yourself and you want to go harder because you feel the guy’s getting weak. I wanted to finish my takedown. I wasn’t able to do that but fortunately I got the stall call.”
And the Nittany Lions (10-1, 6-1 Big Ten) got their ninth straight dual meet win. While Brown’s win injected the Penn State bench with excitement, sophomore Ed Ruth gave the Lions the best possible start at 174.
Nebraska’s Tyler Koehn battled Ruth, ranked No. 2, tensely in the first period of the night’s first bout, keeping the dangerous Lion sophomore off the scoreboard.
But Ruth soon found his offense, notching a quick escape and takedown in the second period before rolling Koehn into a cradle for three nearfall points. Ruth secured the pin via his cradle to give Penn State a 6-0 lead 5:58 into the bout.
The Lions would follow that with four straight wins. Decisions came from No. 2 Wright, who beat No. 7 Josh Ihnen 9-6 at 184, Brown, No. 6 Cameron Wade who beat No. 9 Tucker Lane 8-2 at 285 and No. 9 Nico Megaludis who earned a 23-6 technical fall over Shawn Nagel at 125.
“Coach Cael really made us stay focused for this match which obviously helped with the score,” Brown said. “He said, ‘We’ve got to get after them today. Don’t take these guys easy because they’re such a great team.’ And we were able to do that and we went hard and we got what we wanted.”
Frank Martellotti lost his third straight bout at 133 when he gave up a last-second reversal to No. 18 Ridge Kiley. Martellotti had controlled the pace for the most part throughout the match save for a wild scramble to begin the third period, but surrendered the winning points in the final seconds.
Nebraska won its second and last match of the night when No. 5 Jake Sueflohn beat Bryan Pearsall 6-1 at 141.
No. 1 Frank Molinaro got Penn State back on track with a 14-6 at 149 pounds over Skylar Galloway. No. 6 Dylan Alton edged No. 7 James Green at 157 with a 2-1 decision in double overtime after Alton escaped to begin the second extra session and broke Green down and held him there for the duration of the second.
No. 1 David Taylor capped the dual with a 13-3 pounding of No. 6 Robert Kokesh at 165.
