No. 1 Penn State Wrestling kept its winning ways going with a 35-0 shellacking of Michigan State on Sunday afternoon.
This dual meet was the Nittany Lions‘ last leg of a quick trip to Michigan and they laid waste to both programs even though they weren’t wrestling at full strength.
And even though the Spartans have one of the worst Big Ten wrestling teams this year, I have to give them a ton of credit because they at least looked like they wanted to wrestle. Which something else can be said about the dual meet against Michigan on Friday evening.
Anyway, let’s move on.
Now onto the action!
Penn State Wrestling vs. Michigan State Recap
The dual started out at 125 where Braeden Davis got the Nittany Lions on the board first with a workman-like 7-3 decision. In the next match, Aaron Nagao heeded the wise words of Ted Lasso as he did his best “be a goldfish” routine and blasted his way to an 18-3 technical fall.
At 141, Beau Bartlett looked a little more sharp on the mat than he did in his Michigan bout. Bartlett opened up his offense in the third period following the first two periods which were low scoring. His 8-2 decision gave the Nittany Lions an 11-0 lead after the first three matches.
David Evans again got the start at 149 and he continued to do exactly what the coaches asked him to do. And that was take to the mat, wrestle hard, and win. Check, check, and check.
Following Evans’ 4-2 decision, Levi Haines had his hands absolutely full against Chase Saldate. As I mentioned in the preview, I had a feeling this would possibly be a tough spot given the experience Saldate has.
Levi trailed 3-2 going into the final period but the No. 1 ranked sophomore willed his way to knot the score at 5-5. The match went to sudden victory where there was plenty of action. However neither guy could land the deciding takedown. So it was on to TB.
Haines was down to start and even though it looked like he freed himself with a second left on the clock, the officials determined it was not an escape. Levi then held Saldate down for the full 30 seconds, however he was dinged a stall point in the process.
And in the next TB with Haines again on bottom with the final seconds ticking away, he pulled a miraculous escape and reversal on Saldate . Levi has been walking a bit of a tight rope in some of his matches this season and this one was a razor-thin victory.
Mitchell Mesenbrink followed Haines’ exciting 7-5 win with an equally exciting 18-9 major decision over Caleb Fish. The third period was simply an exhibition on how to demoralize an opponent.
After the first six matches in the dual, Penn State was up 21-0 on Sparty.
Terrell Barraclough wrestled his second consecutive match at 174 pounds and he picked up his first win (8-1 decision) at this weight in the process.
Coming off the incredible match he had against NCAA Champion and three-time All-American Shane Griffith, it was no surprise that Barraclough won this match.
Next up at 184, Bernie Truax faced another ranked opponent who gave him a some fits. But the three-time All-American pulled out a 4-2 decision win and hanging on to these close matches has to give him more and more confidence on the mat.
In other news, did you know that Aaron Brooks is, like, really good?
At this point I think I should only make note of any of his matches that aren’t won by a technical fall. Because Brooks was just overwhelming in his 21-6 win over a ranked grappler who had no chance.
With only one match left on the day, Penn State was pummeling the Spartans 32-0.
And up last at 285 pounds, it was Lucas Cochran who took to the mat for the Nittany Lions. Like Barraclough did this past weekend, Cochran was given the opportunity to compete at a weight he’s never wrestled at before.
Notice how I used the word “opportunity”. Because that’s how everyone in the Nittany Lion wrestling looks at situations like this.
Lucas was giving up who knows how many pounds in this bout and he never backed down or ran away. Instead he trusted his training and wrestled his butt off against a starting heavyweight in the Big Ten.
Cochran’s 5-0 decision win gave the Nittany Lions their second Big Ten shutout as they cruised to the 35-0 win.
Penn State is back on the road for their next dual meet against Maryland on Sunday, January 28th. The dual is set to start at 12:00pm EST and will air on the Big Ten Network.
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No. 1 Penn State 35 Michigan State 0
125 No. 14 Braeden Davis (PSU) dec. over Tristan Lujan (MSU) 7-3, PSU 3 MSU 0
133 No. 4 Aaron Nagao (PSU) tech. fall over Andy Hampton (MSU) 18-3, PSU 8 MSU 0
141 No. 2 Beau Bartlett (PSU) dec. over No. 33 Jordan Hamdan (MSU) 8-2, PSU 11 MSU 0
149 David Evans (PSU) dec. over Braden Stauffenberg (MSU) 4-2, PSU 14 MSU 0
157 No. 1 Levi Haines (PSU) dec. over No. 21 Chase Saldate (MSU) 7-5 (TB2), PSU 17 MSU 0
165 No. 9 Mitchell Mesenbrink (PSU) major dec. over No. 10 Caleb Fish (MSU) 18-9, PSU 21 MSU 0
174 Terrell Barraclough (PSU) dec. over DJ Shannon (MSU) 8-1, PSU 24 MSU 0
184 No. 5 Bernie Truax (PSU) dec. over No. 22 Layne Malczewski (MSU) 4-2, PSU 27 MSU 0
197 No. 1 Aaron Brooks (PSU) tech. fall over No. 29 Kael Wisler (MSU) 21-6, PSU 32 MSU 0
285 Lucas Cochran (PSU) dec. over Josh Terrill (MSU) 5-0, PSU 35 MSU 0
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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.
