WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — After a tough round Saturday night that saw the Penn State wrestling team fall to third place in the team standings at the Big Ten Championships, head coach Cael Sanderson called a meeting at the team hotel.
The wrestlers all piled into a room and there was a relaxed, smiling Sanderson ready to say a few words. There was no fire and brimstone tirade, no pleading to do more for the coach, just a few calm words about why these guys got into the sport and why they stayed with it.
He talked about the enjoyment of the sport and of competing. He told his team to go have fun. He told it he couldn’t wait to see how it responded to its first real adversity since November.
Well, it did have fun. And it responded in impressive fashion. Penn State won 13 of the 15 bouts it wrestled Sunday, and the Nittany Lions pulled in front of, and then away from, Minnesota and Iowa to win their second-straight Big Ten title.
The Nittany Lions won with a school-record 149 points to outdistance Minnesota by 15 points and Iowa by 23 points. The Lions went 31-11 on the weekend and earned bonus points in 19 of the 31 wins. The 26 bonus points were crucial to Penn State’s win.
‘When you have a tight field like this was for the Big Ten tournament, you have to have those bonus points to win,’ associate head coach Cody Sanderson said. ‘We had some guys, especially in the finals, go out and get those bonus points and it just sets the tone for everyone else. To escape this tournament with the win, it’s something special.”
Penn State has nine wrestlers automatically qualified for the NCAA tournament and it will learn Wednesday evening if Bryan Pearsall will give them a full contingent. Pearsall finished seventh at 141 pounds. The Big Ten only qualified the top five automatically, so Pearsall must hope that the NCAA selection committee will award him one of the at-large bids. The announcements will be made at 6 Wednesday night.
“I’ll be lucky if I get any sleep the next couple of days,” Pearsall said. “I feel I wrestled my best the entire year here at this tournament, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a spot there.”
Frank Martellotti rode Ridge Kiley, of Nebraska, for the entire third period to pull out a 4-3 win on 1:25 in riding time advantage. The win gave Martellotti seventh place and the final automatic qualifying spot at 133 pounds.
“I really think I’m getting better every match, and I’m still not where I want to be but I feel great right now,” Martellotti said after securing the berth.
The Nittany Lions were led by their three two-time Big Ten champions. Senior Frank Molinaro did not allow a point in the Big Ten tournament for the second-straight year. Molinaro pinned Kaleb Friedley, of Northwestern, in the quarterfinals, then posted technical falls over Ivan Lopouchanski, of Purdue, (16-0, 6:07) and Dylan Ness, of Minnesota, (15-0, 4:50) to claim Outstanding Wrestler of the Championships honors, which he shared with Michigan’s Kellen Russell, who became just the 11th four-time Big Ten champion.
Molinaro was relishing the weekend.
“I’m so happy right now, I can’t stop smiling,” Molinaro said. “I can’t wait to go out to dinner with all of my teammates tonight. This one really means a lot. I mean, we just showed so much heart after the session last night. To pull ahead they way we did, it just shows you so much about our team and the coaches and the foundation we have.
‘I’m really just trying to enjoy everything because this is it for me.”
Redshirt sophomore David Taylor improved to 27-0 and picked up a major decision over Iowa’s Mike Evans with a late tilt in the finals to win, 11-2. Taylor, who moved up to 165 pounds this season, was named the Outstanding Wrestler for the season in the Big Ten for the second-straight year.
Ed Ruth picked up three major decisions, including a 13-2 win over Minnesota’s Logan Storley in the finals to earn his Big Ten title at 174 pounds.
All 10 starters won their final bouts of the tournaments, with true freshmen Nico Megaludis and Morgan McIntosh taking fifth and Dylan Alton, Quentin Wright and Cameron Wade all finishing third.
Penn State will look to ride the momentum gained here in West Lafayette to a second-straight NCAA championship in St. Louis. The NCAA tournament will run March 15-17. The Nittany Lions know they are ready to respond to the next challenge and they plan on having fun along the way.
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