Penn State rebounds from disappointing start to Day 1 of NCAA wrestling championships

Things didn’t go quite as planned for Penn State in the first session of the NCAA wrestling championships on Thursday.

The Nittany Lions saw two wrestlers get pinned and fall into the consolations mighty early, and sit third in the team race.

Zain Retherford (149 pounds), Jason Nolf (157), Vincenzo Joseph (165), Mark Hall (174), Bo Nickal (184), Shakur Rasheed (197) and Nick Nevills (285) all opened their championships with a win. Corey Keener (133) and Nick Lee (141) each were pinned with Lee’s loss — the most surprising.

All seven winners did record bonus points to give Penn State 16, which trails Iowa (18.5) and Ohio State (17).

Nevills scored the highest bonus points with a pin of Kent State’s Stephen Suglio. Nevills led 8-0 before turning Suglio to his back in 5:24.

Retherford and Nolf each had technical falls.

Retherford dominated Eastern Michigan’s Kyle Springer 16-1. Retherford recorded three takedowns and two sets of near-fall points in the third period in the win.

Nolf recorded a 22-7 victory over Central Michigan’s Colin Heffernan. Nolf looked like himself tallying six takedowns — two in each period, and two sets of near-fall points.

Joseph, Hall, Nickal and Rasheed all had major decisions.

Joseph had two takedowns in each period and added a riding time point in a 15-4 win over Princeton’s Jonathan Schleifer. Hall recorded four takedowns and received two stall points on way to a 12-2 victory over Drexel’s Austin Rose.

Nickal seemed frustrated in his 16-4 win over South Dakota State’s Martin Mueller. Nickal led 6-0 after the first period and a couple times in his match was shaking his head. He amassed four takedowns in the final two periods en route to the win.

Rasheed shook of an early injury timeout in a 13-5 victory over The Citadel’s Sawyer Root. Fifteen seconds into the match, Rasheed hit the mat but didn’t grab for anything. He tallied two takedowns to lead 4-1 after the first period. Rasheed put up eight points in the third period to close out the win.

In the most unpredictable result of the day for Penn State, Maryland’s Ryan Diehl caught Lee by surprise and stuck him in 2:13. Lee beat Diehl in the team’s dual earlier this year 22-10. Lee gets to take on Northern Iowa’s Josh Alber, in a matchup of No. 8 and No. 9 seeds. Lee pinned Alber in the Southern Scuffle at the beginning of January.

Keener initially looked impressive against Pittsburgh’s Dom Forys scoring the opening takedown of the match. He caught Forys again later for another takedown and had a cradle locked up. Forys used Keener’s cradle against him and rolled through and pinned Keener in 4:57.

This story was originally published March 15, 2018 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Penn State rebounds from disappointing start to Day 1 of NCAA wrestling championships."