3 takeaways from Penn State wrestling’s Big Ten dual championship-clinching weekend

Note: All rankings are from InterMat as of Feb. 8.

Penn State wrestling clinched the regular season Big Ten dual championship title this weekend with wins over Nebraska (21-13) on Sunday and Ohio State (32-7) on Friday.

The Nittany Lions will now have two weeks off before wrapping up the dual season with Rider on Feb. 20 at Rec Hall.

While the season hasn’t been perfect — with illness and injury plaguing the starting lineup and several close wins — Penn State is sitting atop InterMat’s team tournament rankings with 119 points (to second-place Iowa’s 88) with less than a month to go before the postseason.

Will the Nittany Lions be able to keep their momentum going and reclaim their Big Ten and NCAA team titles from Iowa? Here are three takeaways from Penn State’s final conference dual weekend of the season:

2-week break is coming at an opportune time

The Nittany Lions were without three regular starters on Sunday, and saw another limp off the mat. Carter Starocci and Brady Berge missed both of the weekend’s duals, while Max Dean missed Sunday’s and Greg Kerkvliet appeared to injure a leg muscle in his 8-2 win over Nebraska’s Christian Lance.

But, according to head coach Cael Sanderson, there’s no need for fans to panic.

“Carter’s just been nursing an injury, and it just made sense to give him a little bit more time and not rush him into these duals,” he said Friday. “And Brady’s just kind of been working on his weight.”

Sanderson said that the X-rays checked out fine for No. 2 Dean, who limped off the mat after his 5-3 sudden-victory win over Ohio State’s No. 21 Gavin Hoffman on Friday, and that the coaching staff didn’t see a reason to “force him back into a match 48 hours later.”

While he didn’t have much time to assess Kerkvliet’s apparent injury before addressing the media Sunday, Sanderson said, “I think he’ll be alright.”

Penn State will now have two weeks off to recover before Rider, and then nearly two weeks after that before the Big Ten Championships in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In the meantime, it sounds like the Nittany Lions will have some time off from high-impact training, and will be working more on their endurance.

“We’re going to be on the track a lot,” Sanderson said with a laugh. “It’s going to be great.”

Questions remain about Penn State’s lineup

Sanderson was noncommittal when pressed Friday on what “working on his weight” means for Berge, and whether he’s cutting down to 157 pounds or bulking up more for 165.

“Both, if that makes any sense,” he said. “If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”

Berge had wrestled at 157 pounds throughout his career at Penn State, until announcing he was medically retiring from the sport at the end of last season, and taking a volunteer coaching job at South Dakota State. He’s been competing at 165 pounds since his unexpected return to State College in early January, compiling a 3-1 record.

Both of those weight classes have been weaker spots in Penn State’s lineup this season, especially 157.

Penn State earned only its second official dual meet victory of the season at 157 on Friday, when Terrell Barraclough secured a 4-2 win in sudden victory over Ohio State’s Isaac Wilcox in front of 15,991 fans at the Bryce Jordan Center.

The sophomore is one of four wrestlers who have started at 157 this season, but appears to have the edge, getting the start in the past five duals. Barraclough has wrestled competitively against some of the weight’s top wrestlers, falling 3-2 to Michigan’s No. 9 Will Lewan, Nebraska’s No. 10 Peyton Robb and 2-0 to Iowa’s No. 12 Kaleb Young.

But he hasn’t yet had his big breakout win.

“I think Terrell has the potential to beat those guys and be a contender,” Sanderson said. “He just needs the confidence.”

Meanwhile, Creighton Edsell has amassed a 9-3 record this season at 165 pounds and come up big several times for the Nittany Lions. He defeated Ohio State’s Kevon Freeman, 2-0, in sudden victory on Friday and dominated Nebraska freshman Tahjae Jenkins-Taylor, 9-2, on Sunday.

For his part, Berge has gone 3-1 in his limited time back on the mat, including a solid 3-1 win over Michigan’s No. 14 Cameron Amine and a 10-2 major decision loss to Iowa’s No. 5 Alex Marinelli. Sanderson also said Berge was using his time off to work on his conditioning, after looking out of shape against the Hawkeye.

Penn State will have a month now to figure out which two of those three — Barraclough, Berge and Edsell — will get the call in March, and at which weights.

Brooks and Lee quietly earn statement wins

Top-ranked Nittany Lions Nick Lee and Aaron Brooks both took care of business on Sunday, with Lee notching a 4-1 win over Nebraska’s No. 10 Chad Red at 141 pounds and Brooks rolling to a 14-1 major decision over No. 9 Taylor Venz at 184.

While there was no fanfare surrounding either win, as both defending national champs quietly ran off the mat after getting their hands raised, the crowd rising to their feet on both occasions was an acknowledgment of the significance of the victories and of the improvements both wrestlers have made.

Lee lost to Red, 6-5, in the 2016 Indiana state finals. The battle between the two undefeated wrestlers was one of the most high-profile high school matches in recent history.

But since then, Lee has gone 4-0 against the Cornhusker (5-4 in 2019, 9-1 and 7-5 in 2020 and 4-1 in 2022).

While Lee has established his dominance over his old high school rival, he deflected any insinuation from reporters that he’s progressed more than his counterpart since that state final.

“There’s a lot of progression to be done in college wrestling,” Lee said. “You see it from every high school wrestler that comes into college. But he’s got a good coaching staff over there, as well, and I think we’ve both kind of learned a lot and developed as wrestlers. And that’s the cool part about our sport.”

Brooks had a similar story as Lee and Red with his opponent Sunday afternoon. Venz holds the distinction of being the only wrestler to have defeated Brooks in college. Venz earned that win with a 9-5 decision during Brooks’ true freshman season in 2020.

That loss is something Brooks says he’s reminded of every time he watches a Big Ten broadcast of one of his matches.

“I was watching my Ohio State match after, and the commentators always say it,” he said. “So, every match of mine I watch to critique myself, they say, ‘Taylor Venz, Taylor Venz was his loss.’ It’s just out there, but I don’t really think about it too much.”

But like Lee, Brooks hasn’t looked back since that defeat, pinning Venz just a few months later in the Big Ten Championships, defeating him 10-5 and 9-4 in 2021 and 14-4 on Sunday.

While it took some pressing from reporters, Brooks did eventually acknowledge the gap that has widened between him and his opponent, and credited those in the Penn State program for his progression.

“God put me in the situation to wrestle at Penn State,” he said. “I come in with that mindset and that gratitude and it’s hard not to get better in this room. It’s just a credit to the staff, the coaches, my training partners, without them, I wouldn’t be able to do these things. So I think that’s what really separates the gap, is who you surround yourself with and who you are with every day.”

This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 5:00 AM.