Gulibon leads pride of Nittany Lions into Big Ten finals

A couple of numbers stood out after the first day of the Big Ten Championships.

Eight and six.

Penn State had eight wrestlers punch their tickets to the NCAA tournament on Saturday inside Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Six of those wrestlers are in their weight classes’ final.

“Is that how many we have?” head coach Cael Sanderson asked. “Yeah, that’s good. We got a lot of wrestling still to do. We need to finish strong.”

The most surprising finalist of the six might be Jimmy Gulibon at 141 pounds. Joining Gulibon are Nico Megaludis (125), Zain Retherford (149), Jason Nolf (157), Bo Nickal (174) and Morgan McIntosh (197).

Gulibon entered the tournament 10-8 and on a four-match losing streak.

“I haven’t been wrestling the way I feel I can,” he said. “I haven’t opened up too much here but I just kept wrestling. I think it gives me a pretty good confidence boost.”

Gulibon, who was the No. 8 seed, had a bye in the first round. He faced off with top-seeded Micah Jordan of Ohio State in the quarterfinals.

The pair went into the first sudden victory tied 1-1. Neither could score in that period and traded points in the 30-second tiebreakers.

In the second sudden-victory period, Gulibon looked to have secured a takedown just as time expired. No takedown was called. Penn State associate head coach Cody Sanderson challenged, but the call stood.

“Jimmy hasn’t had the best year but that kid is a freak of nature,” Megaludis said. “He doesn’t look strong but he is ridiculously strong. You can tell he is fast but when he puts those two together and gets his head right, that kid is stinkin’ good when he puts his mind to it.”

In the first tie-breaker, Gulibon rode out Jordan. Needing just an escape and desperate to not give up any more points, Gulibon was in position for the win. He escaped and fought off countless Jordan takedown attempts for the 3-2 win.

In the semifinals, it came down to the last seconds again. Trailing 5-2 to open the third period, Gulibon used an escape to get within 5-3. With 25 seconds remaining in the match, he got the takedown needed to tie it up at 5. Gulibon had enough riding time built up to edge Michigan State’s Javier Gasca 6-5.

“You know that’s in him,” Sanderson said. “It was a great tournament for him. He’s got a big match tomorrow but it’s great momentum for him going into nationals. That’s what he needs, he’s a guy that his confidence soars when he is having success.”

Another key number for Penn State: 15. As in, the Nittany Lions had 15 of their 23 wins on the day with bonus points. They had six pins, two technical falls and seven major decision victories.

The bonus points helped Penn State gain firm seating in the top spot of the team race with 133 points, leading Iowa by 27 points heading into the final day. The Hawkeyes only have four in the championship finals. Ohio State (100), Nebraska (98.5) and Rutgers (90.5) round out the top five in team scores.

Megaludis had two major decisions to make it to the semifinals. He then edged Iowa’s Thomas Gilman 4-3 in second tie-breaker to reach the finals. Megaludis will have a rematch with Ohio State’s Nathan Tomasello.

“It was awesome to wrestle in that crowd,” Megaludis said. “I’ve wrestled here three or four times and every time it’s a great crowd. Gilman is a great wrestler. I’ve beaten him before but I just have to focus on myself.”

Retherford went fall, major decision and fall to reach the finals. His last pin came in the semifinals over Michigan’s Alec Pantaleo in the first period at 2:45. Retherford will face Iowa’s Brandon Sorenson in the first of two Penn State-Iowa finals.

Nolf had the most dominant day. Like he has done all year long, he went fall, technical fall, technical fall. The last tech fall came over Iowa’s Edwin Cooper Jr. 21-3 in 6:03. Nolf gets a rematch with Illinois’ Isaiah Martinez. Nolf pinned the returning NCAA champion in January, snapping the Fighting Illini wrestlers unbeaten streak.

“Same thing as all year,” he said after his semifinal win. “I’m training for nationals. It will be the same thing there too match after match.”

Nickal, who had a bye to the quarterfinals, used a major decision and a pin on his road to the finals. He pinned Ohio State’s Myles Martin in 2:28 to setup a match with Illinois’ Zach Brunson.

McIntosh took a total of 3:09 to make the semifinals. He pinned Indiana’s Jake Masengale in 1:28 to open the tournament. He then flattened Michigan State’s Jacob Cooper in the quarterfinals in 1:41. In the semifinals, he controlled Nebraska’s Aaron Studebaker for the 8-2 win. He will be in the other Nittany Lions-Hawkeyes matchup when he wrestles Nathan Burak.

“We left some out there too,” Sanderson said of the bonus point victories. “Our big dogs really stepped up. Zain and Nolf they did a nice job. Nico and Conaway had big wins. I’m proud of these guys.”

Jordan Conaway and Matt McCutcheon have a chance of finishing third. McCutcheon made it a round further than Conaway as he fell in the 184-pound semifinals to Iowa’s Sammy Brooks 6-1.

Conaway suffered a defeat to Wiconsin’s Ryan Taylor in the 133-pound quarterfinals 10-5. He wrestled his way back and is one win away from the third-place match.

Geno Morelli went 2-2 on the day at 165 pounds and will wrestle for seventh place. He fell one spot short of the automatic bid for the NCAA tournament. However, if he can finish seventh, he has a chance of earning an at-large bid, which are announced Wednesday.

Nick Nevills went 0-2 on the day at 285 and was eliminated.

“I think overall we wrestled well,” Sanderson said. “When you have 10 guys, not everyone wrestles as well as we would’ve liked. This is a great atmosphere. It was a good day for us.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Gulibon leads pride of Nittany Lions into Big Ten finals."