It's been almost a full year since Frank Martellotti's stellar freshman campaign came to a grinding halt.

A brilliant start to his first season with the Nittany Lions had him on the fast track to the national rankings, and his debut match victory quickly yielded more success.

However, once the calendar turned to January, many wondered just what happened to that promising 125-pounder.

It wasn't injury that stopped Martellotti's rise. That's how he got in to the line-up as true freshman, when season starter Brad Pataky went down with an injury, and Maretellotti was the first choice to fill the void at one place Penn State wasn't particularly deep: its lower weights.

It wasn't performance, either. The true freshman from Shady Side Academy was 18-3 through 21 collegiate matches and didn't suffer a loss until the team's trip to the Southern Scuffle, one of the most prestigious college wrestling tournaments in the nation.

In fact, it had nothing to do with the circle in the middle of the mat, or the exercise bikes in the corner of the Lorenzo Wrestling Complex, or even the stiff competition he faced in the room daily to hold his position.

Rather, it was the academic side of the equation that kept Martellotti out of play. Now, after 12 long months, he is back to wearing Penn State blue and white.

Martellotti finished his career at Shady Side with four consecutive PIAA state place finishes, including a state title in 2007 and a 48-3 record during his senior year, and scholarships from Division I wrestling programs came as often as wins. Martellotti, though, turned them all down, deciding instead to walk on at Penn State for the start of the 2010 wrestling season.

"It was a big deal when Coach Cael came here, and obviously big things are going to happen with a coach like that," Martellotti said of this decision.

"I kinda just ran it through my head, and this is where I thought I would be my best."

Like most walk-ons, Martellotti had no expectations when he first entered the LWC and in the beginning. That drove him to outwork the rest of the guys in the room.

"There was really no set time for me to be able to step in and contribute, so that helped me in the beginning, because I just worked my hardest," he said.

The hard work paid off for the PIAA District 7 product when, after Pataky went down, Martellotti jumped into the void and quickly rose up the national radar, scoring a debut victory over Bloomsburg's Sean Boylan, 5-3, and stayed undefeated until the Scuffle. There, he pinned two opponents but ultimately ended the tournament 6-3 for a sixth-place finish.

The Scuffle was the final match that Martellotti wrestled in a Penn State singlet that year, as academic struggles forced him off the mat and into the classroom for the rest of the 2011 spring semester and into the fall semester.

"I never really worked as hard as I could in high school, so it didn't really transition well for here," he said. "And things like losing weight and just starting factored in, and I know I can do better. ...

"There was a lot of stuff going on, and hindsight is 20/20. But there were a lot of things I could have done differently," Martellotti went on.

Work is what he had to do, and work is exactly what he did. When he wasn't in the classroom, he was found in the wrestling room, practicing every day with teammates, working just as hard as they did. But he had one additional piece of motivation:

No matter what, when the lights came on inside Rec Hall's main gym, Martellotti wouldn't be a part of it.

"If I look at myself then and now, I think I'm a completely different wrestler," he said. "My attitude towards the sport, and the experience of wrestling half a year -- I think I completely changed."

Martellotti changed to a more aggressive style preached by the coaching staff, and worked a lot from the top position over the summer with former Penn State assistant Troy Letters, now at Clarion.

"Working on top has been my biggest improvement, and it's not that I struggled," he said, "but I definitely wasn't as good at it as I am now."

Martellotti wrestled unattached in the Nittany Lion Open, and wrestled well, but he still was not cleared to rejoin the team in full until the start of the spring semester.

He made his 2011-2012 debut against Michgan State's Brandon Fifield in the first dual meet of the 2012 portion of the season. Martellotti started down to begin the third period, escaped to take a 6-5 lead, and rode Fifield out for the victory.

"With Frank getting back on the mat, we definitely saw some really good things there, and he can even wrestle better than that," head Coach Cael Sanderson said of his first match back. "We're not even worried about the wins -- just the performance -- but it's great to see him back out there."

Looking back on the year off, Martellotti is refocused on both the classroom and the mat, and is even more convinced that Penn State was the right choice for him.

"While I was out of action, I really learned how supportive the coaches and everyone here really is, just with little things like texting me to ask how class is going, and things like that, which really make a difference," he said.

Now, with everything behind him, Martellotti will begin to pick up where he left off, now at 19-3 in his career, and attempt to help move Penn State forward to St. Louis, Mo., for the NCAA National Championship in March.

"I just have to keep learning what I need to get better at and improve at, and reinforce," Martellotti said. "I feel great at 133, and the coaches are comfortable with me there, so now it's just getting back in to wrestling shape and getting at it again."

Related coverage

• StateCollege.com's Penn State wrestling page