Nolf-Martinez match highlight of Penn State’s dual with Illinois

Let the hype begin!

For college football fans, there are Penn State’s tilts with Ohio State and Michigan.

For wrestling fans, more recently it was David Taylor versus Kyle Dake. Now, they get to look forward to a new rivalry.

Jason Nolf versus Illinois’ Isaiah Martinez.

“I think any kind of hype isn’t a bad thing,” Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said, “as long as we are not caught up in it as individuals or as a team. It’s just another wrestling match.”

Nolf said the same thing.

“Not much to it,” he explained. “I just got to wrestle as hard as I can and expect the right results.”

Penn State fans have had the Nittany Lions’ matchup with the Fighting Illini at 4 p.m. on Saturday circled on their calenders for quite some time now.

“I think it is great for the sport of wrestling,” Nolf said. “Fans get pretty hyped up about this kind of stuff. I’m getting kind of excited.”

The two sport similar wrestling styles. They go out looking to score as many points as possible.

When asked how many points he thought it would take to win on Saturday, Nolf had a simple response.

“More points than him,” the redshirt freshman said. “It doesn’t matter how many points I have to score — just as long as I score more than him, I win.”

They sport the same record at 20-0. Martinez has 17 of his victories with bonus points while Nolf has 15.

Martinez has 14 technical fall victories to go with three pins. Nolf has nine pins to go with six technical falls.

“He is a gamer,” Sanderson said of his wrestler and his opponent. “Martinez is a gamer, too. That’s a big match. We are excited to see where Nolf is with him.”

They have one opponent in common. Both have beaten Oklahoma State’s talented freshman Joseph “Jo Jo” Smith.

Martinez topped Smith 11-5 in the finals of the Tournament of Champions in Reno, Nev. Nolf beat the Cowboy 7-3 in the finals of the Southern Scuffle.

Saturday’s matchup will be the first for the pair. However, Nolf knows a little bit about Martinez and looks to find out more.

“I know he goes to the under hook a lot,” Nolf said. “I haven’t watched him too much. Coaches can do that for me and I think they will give me an idea of what to look for.”

Although fans will be focused on that match, Sanderson knows that there is more to the dual than just that one match.

“It’s a great opportunity for Jordan (Conaway) wrestling against Zane Richards,” he said. “He (Richards) is a tough wrestler, been around for a while … very strong, undefeated and highly ranked. (1)74 is undefeated, 65 pounder is real good, 41 pounder is good and 84 pounder is ranked.

“They’ve got a good team. We’re going to have to wrestle and score bonus points when we can and win those close matches. It’s going to be fun.”

As Sanderson mentioned, Illinois sports a talented lineup of wrestlers.

Richards at 133 is undefeated on the year. He has wins over Iowa’s Corey Clark and Ohio State’s Johnni DiJulus. At 165 pounds, Steven Rodrigues is 17-1 with his loss coming to Ohio State’s Bo Jordan, who began the year ranked No. 1 at 174 pounds. Zac Brunson holds down the point at 174 pounds and will pose a tough test for Bo Nickal. Brunson is undefeated with a win over Indiana’s Nate Jackson, who beat Nickal just a couple of weeks ago.

One thing for sure, though, is that the Fighting Illini are battle tested. They won their first eight matches with the biggest coming over Arizona State. They won the Tournament of Champions, but since the Big Ten schedule has started, they are 1-3. The win came against Michigan State. Their losses came to Ohio State (22-17), Iowa (26-12) and Michigan (25-14).

Penn State is set to face the Buckeyes and Wolverines during the last month of the season. Both of those matches will be at home.

Answer in sight

Geno Morelli and Shakur Rasheed are still battling it out for the starting spot at 165 pounds.

Morelli started in the Nittany Lions’ 24-10 win over Nebraska on Friday. He suffered a tough 3-2 loss to Austin Wilson, who got the winning point from a riding time advantage. Rasheed got the nod in Penn State’s 46-4 win over Northwestern on Sunday. Rasheed scored a 6-0 decision win.

However, Sanderson still isn’t set on a main guy just yet.

“I think it is getting close,” he said. “We need to give one of those guys an opportunity to really have some matches in the Big Ten. They got to give themselves a chance to get ranked. If you only wrestle a third of the guys or half of those guys, it makes things a little bit more of a challenge. I think we are getting closer to having that weight locked down.”

Heavyweight on the mind

The Nittany Lions made a change at heavyweight last weekend too.

“It’s something we are still trying to figure out,” Sanderson said. “Anywhere you can score a point or save a point we got to try and use our best judgment in that regards.”

Wes Phipps returned to the mat for the first time in more than 18 months. He was recovering from an injury.

Phipps debuted at the weight class and did the best he could despite being outweighed by as much as 76 pounds. He suffered a 10-0 major decision loss to Northwestern’s Conan Jennings. His first match was also a major decision loss 9-1 to Nebraska’s Collin Jensen.

“Phipps did a nice job fighting last week,” Sanderson said. “He wrestled two big kids. He has to make some small adjustments while wrestling the bigger guys. He is trying to pick them straight up in the air and that’s not generally a good idea. He’s strong enough where he is almost getting it done, but he has to get to the corner a little faster.”

Streak begins again

It was announced on Wednesday that Penn State’s dual with Ohio State inside the Bryce Jordan Center was sold out.

“That’s exciting,” Sanderson said. “That’s what we wanted and expect. Now it’s our job to put out a good product and entertain everybody. We appreciate the 16,000 fans for being there. It’s going to be a fun night.”

Penn State had a streak of 27 straight sold-out matches. It came to an end when it was unable to fill the BJC for the Wisconsin dual earlier this year.

However, the numbers are still astounding.

The Nittany Lions have sold out 28 of their past 29 matches with 26 straight being sold out in Rec Hall.

Now, the streak will begin again and it is at one after the Nebraska match sold out. It could go to three if the Michigan match on Jan. 31 gets sold out and then with the Ohio State dual on Feb. 5.

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 8:40 PM with the headline "Nolf-Martinez match highlight of Penn State’s dual with Illinois."