Here’s how No. 2 Penn State wrestling crushed No. 22 Rutgers in front of national crowd
Things didn’t start the way Penn State wrestling would’ve liked on Sunday in front of a national crowd on ESPN2 — with a loss at 125 pounds.
However, they ended really well with the No. 2 Nittany Lions crushing No. 22 Rutgers 38-6 in front off a White Out crowd.
The Nittany Lions, clad in white singlets, had nearly their full lineup of wrestlers minus Brady Berge against the Scarlet Knights.
“We’re gonna wrestle our best team, that’s obviously the plan,” Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said. “Our team has a lot of potential.”
The Nittany Lions received wins from Roman Bravo-Young (133 pounds), Nick Lee (141), Jarod Verkleeren (149), Vincenzo Joseph (165), Mark Hall (174), Aaron Brooks (184), Shakur Rasheed (197) and Seth Nevills (285). Lee, Joseph, Hall, Brooks and Nevills all secured bonus points in their victories.
The dual was expected to have two top-20 matchups, one even being a top-10 tilt. Unlike in last week’s dual, they both occurred Sunday and Penn State won each of them.
The first came at 133 pounds with No. 3 Roman Bravo-Young taking on No. 9 Sammy Alvarez. And boy, did it ever live up to the hype.
Bravo-Young and Alvarez went to sudden victory after the two traded escapes in the first three periods of wrestling. The duo traded escapes again after rideout periods were completed.
In the ultimate tiebreaker period, RBY found the right time to strike and did with a takedown with .2 seconds left on the clock. The takedown was reviewed, ruled in RBY’s favor and the 4-2 win was awarded.
“He stood around a little bit. His opponent was obviously a really tough kid,” Sanderson said of his sophomore. “When he needed to score, he went and scored. I think he found himself in a tough match. I don’t know if he was expecting that or not, but he got tough and got the job done.”
Penn State never looked back from there, outside of a loss at 157 pounds.
Lee picked up a 19-4 technical fall at the buzzer over Jojo Aragona at 141 pounds. Verkleeren picked up a 7-3 win over Nick Santos at 149.
Out of the break, Joseph built up a 15-3 lead on Brett Donner before pinning him in 6:15 to give Penn State a 17-6 lead. Hall was leading Joe Grello 6-2 and was looking to add to his lead when Grello called for injury time. Hall ended up winning by injury default in 6:38 as Grello’s right knee injury kept him from finishing the bout.
Brooks had his hands full with Billy Janzer, who was slowing his offense down for most of the first period. With about 35 seconds left in the second period, Brooks took Janzer down to hold a 4-0 lead.
As they were going down, the true freshman locked up a cradle and stuck Janzer in 4:36. The crowd went nuts as the Nittany Lions led 29-6, but for Brooks it was all part of his plan.
“I didn’t want to force anything I knew he was going to go out there and look to do that,” Brooks said. “I just wanted to focus on kind of moving him and getting him breathing heavy. I think toward the end of the first I heard him taking some heavy breaths. I was like alright, we are getting somewhere. I didn’t want to come out of my element and fall for his game.”
As the crowd fed off of Brooks’ victory, they were rewarded with the other matchup of ranked wrestlers squaring off. It featured No. 20 Rasheed taking on former roommate No. 18 Jordan Pagano, who was with Penn State for one year right out of high school.
“He’s my boy,” Rasheed said of Pagano. “We bet each other a PBJ (sandwich) that I would weigh more than him. I owe him a PBJ now. We are really cool.”
Rasheed scored the first points with a takedown 24 seconds into the match. Pagano handed his friend a stall point and Rasheed tacked on a reversal in the second period for a 5-0 lead after two periods. Rasheed had amassed 2:20 in riding time, which gave him a 6-0 win over his “boy.”
“I’m just feeling better and better every day. It’s just part of their (the coaches) process,” said Rasheed when asked if this was his best effort since returning from offseason ACL surgery. “I’m just moving on to the next match. Obviously, there are things I can improve on, but I’m just learning as I go. I’m just trying to get ready for March.”
Sanderson echoed those words: “It’s just about getting his confidence and making progress. I think he did that today. He is looking good. It’s just every match, keep climbing. We’ve got a month and a half and his goal is a national title, so that’s what we’re moving toward.”
Nevills came out on fire against Alex Esposito taking him down and quickly scoring near-fall points. The second time Nevills went for more near-fall points, he pinned Esposito in 2:24 to close out the dual.
Sanderson felt his team wrestled a lot better as compared to last weekend’s duals against Illinois and Northwestern. After all, two months to the day, Sanderson and Co. will be competing in the NCAA Championships in Minneapolis.
“We gotta just keep getting better as the season goes on. I think that’s what’s happening,” he said. “Just like any other year, it’s whoever scores the most points wins. For them individually, you want to be national champion, you just got to score more points than your opponent and do that five times.
“It’s not easy, but we want to make things as simple as possible. This is a fun team and we’ve got the potential to score a lot of points but, we have to go do that.”
No. 2 Penn State 38, No. 22 Rutgers 6
Sunday at Rec Hall
125: No. 16 Nicolas Aguilar, R, dec. Brandon Meredith, 10-4
133: No. 3 Roman Bravo-Young, PSU, dec. No. 9 Sammy Alvarez, 4-2 (SV2)
141: No. 2 Nick Lee, PSU, tech. fall Jojo Aragona, 19-4 (7:00)
149: Jarod Verkleeren, PSU, dec. Nick Santos, 7-3
157: Michael Van Brill, R, dec. Bo Pipher 1-0 (TB2)
165: No. 1 Vincenzo Joseph, PSU, pinned Brett Donner, 6:15
174: No. 1 Mark Hall, PSU, injury def. Joe Grello, 6:38
184: No. 8 Aaron Brooks, PSU, pinned Billy Janzer, 4:36
197: No. 20 Shakur Rasheed, PSU, dec. No. 18 Jordan Pagano, 6-0
285: Seth Nevills, PSU, pinned Alex Esposito, 2:24
Takedowns: Rutgers 3, Penn State 23
Attendance: 6,485
Records: Rutgers (7-3, 2-2 Big Ten), Penn State (6-1, 3-0 Big Ten)
Next match: Penn State at Nebraska, Friday, 7 p.m.
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 9:18 PM.
