Penn State Wrestling saw several tweaks in their lineup, but the end result was never in question as they rolled Michigan 27-9 in Ann Arbor.
Outside of a former NCAA Champion narrowly beating a Nittany Lions‘ backup and a Michigan pin in a top six matchup, Penn State wrestled virtually a perfect dual meet.
The Nittany Lions were 7-1 in ranked matches and they held a decided advantage in takedowns. Meanwhile Michigan racked up a pile of stall warnings along the way.
Now onto the action!
Penn State Wrestling Throttles Michigan
The dual started out at 157 with the first-ranked matchup of the night between No. 1 Levi Haines and No. 9 Will Lewan.
The match started out slow and both guys received a stall warning late in the first period even though Haines had taken several shots while Lewan didn’t shoot at all. Levi earned the escape early in the second period but that was all of the scoring in the match as it went to the final period.
With Haines starting out in the top position, Lewan broke free twenty seconds in the third period to knot the score 1-1. But it was Levi who kept his foot on the pedal and continued to take shots as Lewan stalled his face off.
Angel Rivera finally slapped Lewan with his second stall warning and the final seconds ticked off the clock as Levi took the 2-1 decision.
The next match between Mesenbrink and Amine started out virtually the same as the previous match. Amine picked up two stall warnings in the first period as Mesenbrink was all over him.
Cam escaped early in the second period to tie the score but he was rightfully given his third stall warning. Mitchell immediately took advantage and finally got a takedown on Amine.
Mesenbrink tacked on another takedown and the riding time bonus as he cruised to the 12-1 major decision. This was honestly the most lopsided major decisions I have ever seen and Mitch is just wrestling at another level.
Carter Starocci had the night off at 174 and Cael Sanderson put Terrell Barraclough in the lineup against former NCAA Champion Shane Griffith. Barraclough would be bumping up a weight class to face a three-time All-American. So yeah, not exactly an easy task.
But man did Terrell Barraclough give Griffith everything he had for the full seven minutes. The only scoring in the match was a reversal by Griffith in the second period and the riding time point given to Terrell. The 2-1 decision in favor of Griffith got the Wolverines on the board as they trailed 7-3 after the first three matches.
It was a bit of a nervy match for Truax at 184, but the competitive Nittany Lion got the job done with the 4-1 decision.
At this point in the dual the Nittany Lions were 3-0 in ranked matchups with potentially five more to go on the night.
At 197 pounds it was simply the Aaron Brooks show. The ease in which Brooks was able to take his opponent to the mat was insane and by my count he had roughly 29 takedowns in the match.
Following Brooks’ dominating 20-5 technical fall, Penn State held a 15-3 at the midway point in the dual.
Not to be out done, Greg Kerkvliet put on a show of his own at heavyweight. And nothing against Bobby Striggow, but he’s not a two-time All-American like Lucas Davison is. However none of that matters when you go up against Kerk Kong.
Greg was decisive, he was quick, and he finished his shots on his way to an 8-3 decision over Davison.
The Wolverines threw out another All-American in the next match in the much-anticipated Braden Davis/Michael DeAugustino bout at 125.
Following a scoreless opening period, Davis showed how strong he was on top position by riding DeAugustino for all but 14 seconds of the second period.
DeAugustino rode Davis for a good portion of the final period however Braeden escaped while still preserving his one minute of riding time. The last minute of the match was full of energy and it was Davis who took advantage of a sloppy shot by DeAugustino. Braeden countered and snuck around the back to land the takedown and the 5-1 decision win.
The first period between Aaron Nagao and Dylan Ragusin was full of action. Both grapplers were able to earn a takedown and an escape and the score was tied 4-4 heading into the second period.
The second period was full of scrambles as Nagao could not break free of Ragusin’s grip. Other than a locked hands call against Ragusin there was no scoring in the period and Aaron was staring at a 1:51 second riding deficit.
Both wrestlers started the third period in neutral however neither grappler could land the deciding takedown. The match was tied 5-5 and it was headed to sudden victory.
Nagao got penetration right from the whistle but after another scramble on the far side of the mat, Ragusin was able to maneuver himself into a position to land the fall over Aaron.
The win by Michigan cut Penn State’s lead to 21-9 with only two matches remaining in the dual meet.
In the final two matches of the night, Beau Bartlett looked a little more like himself as he was coming off two consecutive sluggish matches.
Bartlett won a 7-5 decision in the final ranked match and David Evans brought the dual to a close in style
Next up for Penn State is a short trip down the road to East Lansing where they will take on Michigan State this Sunday at 1:00pm EST.
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No. 1 Penn State 27 No. 13 Michigan 9
157 No. 1 Levi Haines (PSU) dec. over No. 9 Will Lewan (MICH) 2-1, PSU 3 MICH 0
165 No. 9 Mitchell Mesenbrink (PSU) major dec. over No. 7 Cam Amine (MICH) 12-1, PSU 7 MICH 0
174 No. 4 Shane Griffith (MICH) dec. over Terrell Baraclough (PSU) 2-1, PSU 7 MICH 3
184 No. 5 Bernie Truax (PSU) dec. over No. 15 Jaden Bullock (MICH) 4-1, PSU 10 MICH 3
197 No. 1 Aaron Brooks (PSU) tech. fall over No. 32 Bobby Striggow (MICH) 20-5, PSU 15 MICH 3
285 No. 1 Greg Kerkvliet (PSU) dec. over No. 4 Lucas Davison (MICH) 8-3, PSU 18 MICH 3
125 No. 14 Braeden Davis (PSU) dec. over No. 5 Michael DeAugustino (MICH) 5-1, PSU 21 MICH 3
133 No. 6 Dylan Ragusin (MICH) fall over No. 4 Aaron Nagao (PSU) 7:28, PSU 21 MICH 9
141 No. 2 Beau Bartlett (PSU) dec. over No. 25 Sergio Lemley (MICH) 7-5, PSU 24 MICH 9
149 David Evans (PSU) dec. over Fidel Mayora (MICH) 5-2, PSU 27 MICH 9
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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.