‘You learn to love them and hate them’: Why Penn State vs. Lehigh wrestling is one of Pa.’s best rivalries
Penn State’s signature “We Are” chant broke Friday night at Stabler Arena as Nittany Lion wrestling fans were rooting on their top-ranked 174-pounder Mark Hall as he took on Lehigh’s No. 2 Jordan Kutler.
But the “Penn State” replies were quickly taken over by shouts of “Lehigh!” as a new “Mountain Hawks” cheer emerged.
A Stabler Arena athletics record crowd of 6,047 showed up Friday night to watch the 108th meeting meeting between the two teams in what has become one of the best and most historic rivalries in Pennsylvania. The No. 3 Nittany Lions took this one 23-10 for its 10th straight win over the No. 13 Mountain Hawks and to improve to 71-34-3 in the series.
While the rivalry fizzled a bit after Penn State left the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association in 1974, the history between the two schools is rich. Legendary coaches from both sides came out to the dual Friday night, which was held in Lehigh’s basketball arena to accommodate the larger crowd.
Penn State’s Rich Lorenzo watched intently from the front row near the middle of the mat, while former Lehigh coach and Philipsburg-Osceola wrestler Thad Turner was also in attendance, joking with fans as he made his way to his seat before the dual.
“It’s a great rivalry!” Turner said.
Between his years competing from 1966-68 and coaching from 1979-92, Lorenzo was a part of 16 Penn State vs. Lehigh duals.
“It was the most important dual meet of the year between Lehigh and Penn State,” he said. “It was great competing against them. You learn to love them and hate them at the same time, because they are warriors and so are our kids and when they go at it, everything gets thrown out. All in all, great memories and I hope it goes on another 100 years.”
Of all those duals, the one memory that sticks out the most to him was in 1967, when he said Rec Hall was sold out by 4 o’clock for the evening dual.
“We came out that night, went running out onto the mat and it was so loud, the same thing you’ve seen with some recent matches like Ohio State,” he said.
Penn State won that dual 18-12, and Lorenzo won 6-4 over Joe Caprio.
While the hues of brown and white did outnumber the blue, Nittany Lions fans weren’t hard to come by. There were also plenty of greens, purples and blacks scattered in between them, people who weren’t wearing their affiliations — literally — on their sleeves.
With the two schools less than three hours apart, many fans have connections with both programs. For some, that means mixed allegiances.
The crowd erupted and fans rose to their feet, pumping their fists in the air whenever Kutler took down the former national champ and nearly pinned him. But they also seemed to cheer equally as loud when Hall took Kutler down with seconds left to win the bout with a 7-2 decision. It was hard at times to tell who the crowd was cheering for. It oftentimes felt like rather than cheering for one team or the other, most people were just cheering for good wrestling.
Brian Sharpe, a Delaware Valley College grad who lives in the Pocono region, says he’s a Penn State fan, but he was wearing brown and white on Friday. He and about 20 others made the hour drive down to watch close friend Jake Jakobsen, of Sciota, wrestle at 197 pounds for the Mountain Hawks.
“I’ll cheer for Lehigh for Jake, but I like Penn State,” he said.
Sharpe’s favorite Penn State vs. Lehigh memory came in 2017, when the dual was held at the PPL Center, home of Allentown’s minor league hockey team. Jakobsen was wrestling a much smaller Anthony Cassar at 197 that year. He had ridden the eventual heavyweight national champ out in the second period and put himself in a position to win in the third, but came up short.
One of Sharpe’s travel companions, Harry Miller, says he’s all Lehigh.
“Pennsylvania has a rich wrestling history,” he said. “This is District 11, which is one of the powerhouses in the state each and every year. Lehigh is a local, smaller college than Penn State, obviously, and they’ve always been a competitive top-20 team in the country, and that’s one of those things where it may seem like they’re an underdog, but they’ve held their own across the country and that’s an outstanding thing and a statement for the Lehigh Valley.”
While Penn State won by a comfortable margin to bounce back from its first dual loss in nearly five years two weeks ago at Arizona State, there were several matches that were closer than the Nittany Lions would have liked. All three of Penn State’s past national champs, Hall, Cassar and Vincenzo Joseph, gave up takedowns to their opponents. The Nittany Lions also lost a sudden-victory bout at 149, and one in the final seconds at 197.
But there were exciting moments for Penn State as well, such as the debut of highly touted true freshman Aaron Brooks at 184 pounds, a move that will likely boost the Nittany Lions’ national championships hopes in March.
“I think we had some good fire underneath our butts today and just wrestled hard. I still think we can get more,” Hall said. “It’s hard with the trip, we’re taking the bus, two and a half hours. They got hot wrestling room. All that stuff can weigh on you. We got to get that stuff out of our heads. We just got to learn how to wrestle hard, no matter where we are, where we’re competing whether it’s at home or away. We got to put our best foot forward and wrestle hard.”
As the crowd continued to battle back and forth throughout the dual, Lorenzo’s words rang true.
“You learn to love them and hate them at the same time.”
No. 3 Penn State 23, No. 13 Lehigh 10
Friday at Bethlehem
125: No. 11 Brandon Paetzell, L, major dec. Brandon Meredith, 15-5
133: No. 4 Roman Bravo-Young, PSU, dec. Jaret Lane, 7-2
141: No. 3 Nick Lee, PSU, tech. fall Joe Loebeck, 22-7 (7:00)
149: Jimmy Hoffman, L, dec. Jarod Verkleeren, 3-1 (SV)
157: No. 6 Brady Berge, PSU, dec. No. 13 Josh Humphreys, 5-3
165: No. 1 Vincenzo Joseph, PSU, dec. Brian Meyer, 7-4
174: No. 1 Mark Hall, PSU, dec. No. 2 Jordan Kutler, 7-2
184: Aaron Brooks, PSU, dec. Chris Weiler, 10-5
197: No. 15 Jake Jakobsen, L, dec. No. 20 Kyle Conel, 3-1
285: No. 1 Anthony Cassar, PSU, dec. No. 10 Jordan Wood, 9-4
Takedowns: Penn State 25, Lehigh 12
Attendance: 6,047 (Stabler Arena record)
Records: Penn State 2-1, Lehigh 1-3
Next match: Penn at Penn State, Sunday, 2 p.m.
This story was originally published December 7, 2019 at 4:19 PM.
