5 things we learned from Penn State wrestling’s performance at the Black Knight Invite
Penn State wrestling — down four regular starters — went to Army West Point’s Black Knight Invitational Sunday, crowning four champs and placing 11 of its 15 wrestlers, racking up 127.5 points for a second-place finish. The Black Knights themselves finished on top with 140.
With those four starters out — Vincenzo Joseph and Anthony Cassar focusing on freestyle and Brady Berge and Shakur Rasheed recovering from injury — coach Cael Sanderson said last Tuesday that the weekend would offer the opportunity for some of his less experienced wrestlers to get some more matches under their belts.
Sanderson said that the coaches would be evaluating the wrestlers for who showed the most potential — a characteristic said he measures by a wrestler’s attitude and ability to score points. While the coaches might’ve gotten some more clarity Sunday, it appears plenty of questions still exist.
Here’s what we learned:
1. Kyle Conel’s loss, injury raise redshirt questions
While Sanderson has said the training staff and coaches have been working with graduate transfer Kyle Conel to get him back into wrestling shape and to take his game up another level since his third-place NCAA finish two seasons ago, his loss — and injury — Sunday is still concerning.
While Sanderson likes to say the season doesn’t truly start until January, the Nittany Lions’ early-season schedule is no pushover. Penn State, ranked No. 1 in the NWCA weekly coaches poll, heads on the road Friday to take on No. 8 Arizona State, and then is on the road again two weeks later at No. 10 Lehigh, which just upset No. 4 Oklahoma State, a team that hadn’t lost a dual since its 2017-18 season.
While InterMat’s No. 3 ranked 197-pounder Conel did finish his match, a 5-3 loss to Central Michigan’s Aaron Bolo on a late reversal after his injury, he then medically forfeited out of the tournament. While the extent of the injury is unknown, he hobbled off the edge of the mat, and laid on his back while trainer Dan Monthly examined his right leg, wincing in pain.
If Conel is unable to wrestle Friday, the options to replace him at 197 pounds are slim. Sophomore Austin Hoopes went 2-3 at 197 pounds on Sunday, with one of his wins coming by medical forfeit over Conel, en route to a sixth-place finish. However, Hoopes is who Sanderson pointed to as the potential fill-in at heavyweight when Cassar is training for freestyle. Penn State did not enter a heavyweight in Sunday’s tournament.
As of last Tuesday, Sanderson said he was committed to keeping redshirts on his true freshmen — a class that includes Joe Lee (165 pounds), Carter Starocci (174), Aaron Brooks (184), Michael Beard (197) and Seth Nevills (285) — and not “burning them just for a few matches.”
But he did say that those guys are ready to go, and “you never know what’s going to happen.”
If Conel is unable to stay healthy or perform at the level his coaches expect him to, they might have to consider pulling one of those redshirts.
2. The PSU coaches have a tough decision on their hands at 149 pounds
If it sounds like you’ve heard this one before, you’re correct (see Keystone Classic 2018). Just as he was locked in a tight battle last year with Berge for the starting spot at 149, Jarod Verkleeren again finds himself scrapping it out with another teammate. This time, it’s junior Luke Gardner.
Sanderson said prior to the start of the season that the starting spot at 149 was still being contested, and it’s hard to say that Sunday’s tournament provided much clarity. While Verkleeren prevailed in the public wrestle-off between the two in the all-Penn State final, the match was about as close as it could get.
The two battled evenly throughout two-and-a-half periods, trading a pair of escapes, until Verkleeren got the takedown off Gardner’s initial shot with about a minute remaining to win 3-2.
“I think with what we saw today, the battle will continue,” Sanderson told the Pennsylvania Sports Network after the matchup on Sunday. “Jarod Verkleeren is very, very good. Luke has really turned the corner this year, with even the look in his eyes. Two good wrestlers, but it was great to see them wrestle in the finals.”
If Penn State rotates its 149 starters like it did last year, it can be surmised that Verkleeren will get the start against Arizona State, after Gardner got the nod against Navy, turning in a first-period pin. Whoever wrestles that match should be up against a tough opponent in Josh Maruca.
It will be interesting to see how either of them do in a tough road environment, and how things play out from there.
3. Brody Teske steps up at 125 pounds
At Penn State’s other contested weight class — 125 pounds — there seems to be a bit more clarity.
Redshirt freshman Brody Teske said last Tuesday he was unhappy with last week’s 2-1 win in his Rec Hall debut, and he was looking to score more points. He did that on Sunday, coming right out of the gate with a pin of Army’s Ryan Chauvin. He got wins over Big Ten competition in Maryland’s Brandon Cray and Michigan’s Jack Medley en route to a third-place finish. His lone loss came at the hands of Central Michigan’s No. 11 Drew Hildebrandt, 6-0, in the semifinals.
Teske’s teammate Brandon Meredith, however, also had a respectable showing, going 3-2 including a 4-2 win over fellow Nittany Lion Devin Schnupp to place fifth.
While Meredith and Teske didn’t hit, Teske beat Medley 5-4 in the third-place bout, while Meredith lost to Medley 7-2.
Teske said last Tuesday he’s still working to get to that “new level,” and while that might still be a work in progress, he showed marked improvements from his performance just a week ago. He said he was looking forward to Sunday’s tournament as a chance to help build his confidence.
Sunday’s showing should have helped with that confidence — which will be key if Teske finds himself the starter Friday against the Sun Devils’ No. 25 Brandon Courtney.
4. Mark Hall and Nick Lee are stepping up with bonus points
Junior Nick Lee ended last season with an emphatic fall of Minnesota’s Mitch McKee for fifth place at the NCAA championships. It was the second consecutive fifth-place finish for the then-sophomore, who was clearly disappointed with his result after the match.
“I’m not where I want to be,” Lee said then. “Obviously, I want to be a national champ, so it’s pretty clear. I did some things better and some things not as well. I just have to improve from now until next year.”
That pin certainly felt like Lee was sending a message — fifth place isn’t good enough, and he’s ready to prove he can do better.
Lee has so far carried that momentum into his junior campaign. He started his 2019-20 season off last week the way he finished the last one — with a pin. He got two more first-period pins to start off Sunday’s Black Knight Invitational, then broke his four-straight pin streak (extending from last season) with an 18-0 technical fall before beating Central Michigan’s Dresden Simon by an 11-5 decision in the finals.
Senior Mark Hall, a potential Hodge Trophy candidate, has also been a pinning machine so far this season. After also earning a fall against Navy, Hall tacked on two more at West Point, plus a major decision in the finals. Hall’s fall of Maryland’s Phillip Spadafora marked the 34th of his career, tying him for eighth on Penn State’s all-time pins list.
Lee and Hall haven’t always been the biggest pinners on the team. The pair tied for fifth last season in pins for the Nittany Lions, each with six, a total they are both well on track to surpass this season.
To help make up for the points lost from the graduations of Penn State’s top-two pinners of all time, Bo Nickal and Jason Nolf, the Nittany Lions will need guys like Lee and Hall to continue to do what they’ve been doing.
5. Penn State will need all its key pieces to win big duals
While redshirt freshman Creighton Edsell had another good showing filling in for Rasheed at 184, wrestling to a fifth-place finish and falling just 3-1 to Michigan’s No. 17 Jelani Embree, and redshirt freshman Konner Kraeszig was the surprise of the tournament, filling in at 165 pounds and finishing third, each of the backups are considerable dropoffs from the starters they’re replacing.
While keeping Rasheed out for another week as he continues to heal from offseason ACL surgery might not be a game-changer against Arizona State (top-ranked Zahid Valencia will be favored no matter who he wrestles), keeping out Rasheed and any combination of Berge, Cassar and Joseph is when problems might start to occur for the Nittany Lions as the season heats up.
Oklahoma State was without two key pieces of its lineup — No. 10-ranked 141-pounder Kaden Gfeller and No. 5-ranked 174-pounder Joe Smith — in its loss to Lehigh, and a failed skin check also gave the Mountainhawks a win by forfeit. But besides Oklahoma State, No. 3 Ohio State lost to No. 11 Virginia Tech, No. 6 Minnesota lost to unranked Rider, No. 14 University of Northern Iowa lost to No. 21 Northwestern, and unranked Illinois took out No. 13 Missouri.
Yes, with guys like Oklahoma State’s Daton Fix taking Olympic redshirts, and Minnesota’s Gable Steveson still yet to compete this season, some disparity has been diffused between top-ranked teams and others. But the climate also seems ripe for upsets.
Ohio State’s No. 8-ranked 149-pound freshman Sammy Sasso getting pinned by unranked Brent Moore and Minnesota’s No. 6 174-pounder Devin Skatzka getting pinned by unranked Dean Sherry didn’t have much to do with redshirts.
If one of Penn State’s wrestlers were to suffer a similar upset, would the Nittany Lions have enough firepower left in the lineup to overcome it in the team race?
The Nittany Lions are just nine wins shy of tying Iowa’s modern-era dual win streak record of 69 victories, and more teams than just the Hawkeyes could threaten Penn State’s ability to surpass that mark.
This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 5:34 PM.
