Penn State Wrestling hits the sky and the road in the new year as they are set to take on No. 16 Oregon State this Friday evening.
And if the five-plus hour flight and the then two-hour drive to Corvallis isn’t exhausting enough, the Beavers lineup is full of ranked and competitive grapplers.
Make no mistake about it, this will be a tough matchup for the Nittany Lions.
The Beavers boast nine ranked wrestlers in the latest InterMat rankings and there’s a possibility of seven ranked matchups on the night. And of the seven potential ranked matchups, four of them could sport top 12 foes battling it out on the mat.
Unfortunately for Nittany Lion nation, this action-packed dual meet will be difficult to watch unless your TV package somehow includes the Pac 12 Network.
The Best Way to Stream Pac-12 Network is by Signing up for a FREE Trial of FuboTV Here
Penn State Wrestling vs. Oregon State: Everything You Need to Know
How to watch
Date: Friday, January 5th
Time: 8:00 p.m. EST
Where: Gill Coliseum (Corvallis)
TV: Pac 12 Network
How to Watch Online: FuboTV (FREE Trial)
Listen: Free via Lionvision at GoPSUsports.com (link – https://gopsusports.com/watch/?Live=2002&type=Live)
Stream: Pac-12.com, FuboTV
Now let’s turn to the potential matchups ahead of the action on Friday evening.
Potential matchups
No. 1 Penn State vs. No. 16 Oregon State
125 – Braeden Davis or Gary Steen (PSU) vs. No. 15 Brandon Kaylor (ORST)
133 – No. 4 Aaron Nagao (PSU) vs. No. 26 Gabe Whisenhunt (ORST)
141 – No. 2 Beau Bartlett (PSU) vs. No. 25 Cleveland Belton (ORST)
149 – David Evans or Tyler Kasak (PSU) vs. No. 12 Nash Singleton (ORST)
157 – No. 1 Levi Haines (PSU) vs. Isaiah Crosby (ORST)
165 – No. 12 Mitch Mesenbrink (PSU) vs. No. 10 Matthew Olguin (ORST)
174 – No. 1 Carter Starocci (PSU) vs. No. 7 Travis Wittlake (ORST)
184 – No. 2 Bernie Truax (PSU) vs. No. 6 Trey Munoz (ORST)
197 – No. 1 Aaron Brooks or Lucas Cochran (PSU) vs. No. 30 Justin Rademacher (ORST)
285 – No. 1 Greg Kerkvliet or AJ Fricchione (PSU) vs. No. 12 Boone McDermott (ORST)
Prediction
I have a sneaky suspicion that Cael Sanderson is going to give Braeden Davis the call at 125 in this dual. And if this is the case, I’m predicting Penn State Wrestling will start off the dual meet on the right foot with a win (for a change).
From this point on, the Nittany Lions should be full steam ahead in the next five matches. Which will include an unranked upset at 149 pounds as either Evans or Kasak will topple No. 12 Singleton.
Carter and Bernie will both be tested in their top seven matchups. Starocci and Wittlake have never locked horns on the mat and Truax and Munoz have quite an extensive past with five previous matchups on their respective slates.
Bernie is 4-1 career against Trey, however, their most recent matchup went Munoz’s way by fall in the 2022 NCAA Championships.
As for the matches at 197 and 285, it’s possible based on the game-flow of the dual meet and based on their availability, that both Brooks and Kerkvliet may not go.
Aaron may be unavailable due to other commitments and Kerk is still a little banged up from the Lehigh dual as evident by him sitting out the 2023 Senior Nationals a couple of weeks ago.
But in the end, I don’t believe the outcome will ever really be in doubt.
Penn State 24 Oregon State 11
MORE: Big Ten Wrestling Power Rankings … Who is Penn State’s Biggest Threat?
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Education: Penn State University
Location: State College, PA
Even though he had no prior journalism experience, Chris has now covered Penn State Wrestling and Penn State Football for the past three years, including as the Penn State Wrestling Beat Writer for VictoryBellRings.com, part of the FanSided network.
And it's clear he also likes constant torture as he's been a PSU Basketball fan for way too long.
Several years back, Chris made the seamless transition from PGA Professional to computer programmer and thoroughly enjoys following and writing about all things related to Penn State sports during his spare time.
