How Penn State vs. Arizona State wrestling is drumming up excitement on both sides of the country
Friday’s match against the top-ranked Nittany Lions has been circled on Arizona State wrestling’s calendar for a long time, even before the home-and-home series was announced last fall.
“This is a big time in our program,” ASU wrestling coach Zeke Jones to a packed room at the team’s media availability on Monday. “It’s a thing, a team, an event, a time that we put on our schedule ever since all three of us, (wrestlers) Anthony and Zahid (Valencia) and I, arrived here, we marked this on our calendar as an important date in the history for wrestling, wrestling in the west, wrestling for Arizona State, wrestling for our program and for our university.
“A tremendous amount of pride went into bringing Penn State in here, and I have a tremendous amount of faith in the guys next to me, and am excited about our team competing on Friday. It’s a big one.”
The dual is getting so much attention out in Arizona that Tuscon native Roman Bravo-Young said his “whole town” will be coming out to watch him wrestle for the Nittany Lions.
“It’s gonna be fun, it’s gonna be crazy,” the sophomore said on Tuesday outside the Lorenzo Wrestling Complex. “It’s gonna be a good dual and match. It just gets me really excited, and like I said, more excited to get home.”
After the dual, Bravo-Young plans to stay at his home — about 1.5 hours away from Arizona State’s campus in Tempe — for Thanksgiving, where he’s looking forward to eating his family’s Mexican-inspired version of the meal.
Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said he and his staff try to make it a point to give starters on their team the chance to wrestle in their home states. The Utah native reminisced about his time wrestling for Iowa State in college, and how much fun he would have when the team traveled to wrestle Brigham Young, when that university still had a wrestling program.
While he’s excited to go home, see his family and friends, and — mostly importantly — sleep in his own bed, Bravo-Young is keeping focused. “It’s just another match,” he said.
Sanderson believes this trip home will be a good test for his 133-pound wrestler.
“You want wrestle well in front of your home crowd,” Sanderson said. “It’s just a great practice for him to be focused. We have a lot of big matches. He has very lofty goals, so he’s going to have to be focused throughout his career. This is just another opportunity to practice doing that.”
Bravo-Young has put in a lot of work over the past year. He had to overcome an injury in his first year of college wrestling, and he said he feels more mature now than ever. He admitted that he had a lot to adjust to as a freshman in college, and with moving from one coast to the other. However, this year he said he knows what to expect and feels he’s in a lot better state of mind.
“This year I just do a lot of things different, eating better, getting sleep. I’m going to Bible study,” Bravo-Young said. “I’m just taking things from a different perspective. I’m not focusing on winning and losing. I’m not wrestling for other people. I’m not wrestling for the justification of others. I’m just wrestling for myself, and being the best person I can be. My mental stage is in a whole different place. I think Cael and all of them just helped me. Last year, I was worried about, way too many things.”
Bravo-Young isn’t the only one who’s noticed his growth both on and off the mat.
Sanderson has seen a difference in Bravo-Young, too. He said that first year of experience has really helped the sophomore, as well as the time he put into training over the offseason.
“Roman is wrestling really well. He’s fun to watch,” Sanderson said. “He can just score in a lot of entertaining ways. I think he’s definitely more confident than he was a year ago. Now, it’s time to just keep getting better but also, putting that on display and just wrestling with fire and enthusiasm, (which) seems like that’s what he’s doing.”
In addition to giving Bravo-Young the opportunity to wrestle at home, traveling to Arizona State allows Penn State to help bring a large wrestling event to the West Coast — where the sport isn’t as popular as it is on the East Coast.
The Valencia brothers, who were both part of Arizona State’s top-ranked 2015 recruiting class, said they’ve been on social media and talking to friends on campus, trying to get as many students as possible to come out to the dual.
“Penn State is what UCLA basketball was. Penn State is what the Patriots are now. They’ve won nine out of the last 10 national championships. They haven’t lost a dual meet in five years,” Jones told reporters Monday. “If you want to see the best college team in the country come to the arena, this would be the one to come to. Hopefully we’re going to make them the second best. That’s the goal.”
With the top-rated recruiting class in 2015, and the second-best class last year, the Sun Devils are gaining momentum in college wrestling — and Bravo-Young says the excitement Arizona State is building around wrestling is also rubbing off on the rest of the area.
Bravo-Young’s alma mater of Sunnyside High School keeps churning out DI talent, with Jesse Ybarra committing to Iowa, and Anthony Echemendia to Ohio State. There would be even more Sunnyside wrestlers making it to the D1 level, Bravo-Young said, if they had the money.
With less wrestling opportunity on the West Coast, traveling for camps and tournaments can get expensive, he said.
“There is a lot of tough kids especially at my high school that could have made it big, but they just don’t have money and they can’t get out of town. I think money is a big thing,” he said. “There’s a lot of tough kids in Arizona that probably can make it D1, they just don’t have the funds or resources like some of the people on the East Coast do.”
That’s part of the reason why, despite the long plane ride and taking the wrestlers out of class to travel, Sanderson said he believes making the trip out west is important. When Sanderson’s brother, assistant coach Cody Sanderson, was the head coach at Utah Valley, he’d often talk about how difficult it was to get opponents to come out and wrestle them.
Besides, who doesn’t want to go to Arizona in November?
“We need teams traveling out there and wrestling,” Sanderson said. “There’s a lot of great wrestlers everywhere. There’s a lot of great wrestlers in the west. We’ve had several of them come here. It is definitely a challenge for them (West Coast teams) to get those big matches.
“It will be a big match. I know they have a very good team, and like I said before, we’re going to have to wrestle great if we want to win the dual.”
No. 1 Penn State (1-0) at No. 10 Arizona State (4-0)
When: 9 p.m., Friday
Where: Desert Financial Arena, Tempe, Ariz.
Radio: WRSC 93.3 FM
Online: BTN+ (paid subscription), Flowrestling.com (paid subscription)
| Nittany Lions | vs. | Sun Devils |
| 125: Brody Teske (5-1) OR Devin Schnupp (1-2) | vs. | No. 19 Brandon Courtney (7-1) |
| 133: No. 3 Roman Bravo-Young (4-0) | vs. | No. 16 Josh Kramer (7-1) |
| 141: No. 3 Nick Lee (5-0) | vs. | Cory Crooks (2-2) |
| 149: Luke Gardner (3-1) OR Jarod Verkleeren (4-0) | vs. | No. 21 Josh Maruca (3-4) |
| 157: No. 5 Brady Berge (0-0) OR Bo Pipher (4-2) | vs. | Jacori Teemer (0-1) |
| 165: No. 1 Vincenzo Joseph (1-0) | vs. | No. 5 Josh Shields (6-1) |
| 174: No. 1 Mark Hall (4-0) | vs. | No. 8 Anthony Valencia (6-1) |
| 184: No. 2 Shakur Rasheed (0-0) OR Creighton Edsell (3-2) | vs. | No. 1 Zahid Valencia (7-0) |
| 197: No. 7 Kyle Conel (2-1) | vs. | Cade Belshay (3-4) |
| 285: No. 1 Anthony Cassar (1-0) | vs. | No. 5 Tanner Hall (6-1) |
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 8:25 PM.
