When Session IV started Friday night in St. Louis, Mo., it was possible for Penn State to have five finalist in the NCAA Championships come Saturday night.
Frank Molinaro (149 pounds), David Taylor (165 pounds) and Ed Ruth (174 pounds) were favorites in their semifinal bouts, but defending 184-pound national champion Quentin Wright and 125-pound true freshman Nico Megaludis, by seed anyways, were not. It would take a momentous role for the Nittany Lions to go five for five, and for Megaludis and Penn State, the start couldn’t have been better.
Megaludis, Molinaro, Taylor, Ruth, and Wright will all be in Saturday night’s NCAA finals, which begins at 7:30 at the Scottrade Center.
Megaludis, an underdog in most matches this tournament, turned in another heart stopping, brilliantly wrestled performance, as he fended off two deep Frank Perrelli shots to send the match to overtime. Once there, neither wrestler could score in the first tiebreaker and overtime periods, but Megaludis finally broke through for an escape in the second tiebreaker, and rode out the Cornell senior in the second tiebreaker period to advance to the finals opposite of Iowa’s Matt McDonough.
‘Last week, I was forced to take a couple day break, and that really refreshed me. I was having a lot more fun because I was so fresh, and I was really good and so excited to wrestle,’ Megaludis told the Penn State Radio Network.
‘My gameplan was to attack and wrestle hard for seven minutes, and once I got out in the tiebreaker, I told myself I was going to win.’
Megaludis’s mentor and Nittany Lions senior Molinaro was the next wrestler for Penn State in the championship bracket, and he continued his run to one last chance for a national title, dropping Hofstra’s unseeded Justin Accordino 5-0 on the strength of a takedown, reversal, and escape.
Taylor continued his magical run through the tournament, toying with Clarion’s Bekzod Abdurakhmonov before finally taking him to his back after a swift and decisive take down to record the fall in 4:44. Ruth was up next, and sporting teal and black hair, dropped Minnesota’s Logan Storley by technical fall, 17-1, in a match he never trailed in and only surrendered a point after cutting Storley while leading 15-0.
With four wrestlers already into the finals, Quentin Wright had a rematch with his opponent from last year’s NCAA finals, Lehigh’s Robert Hamlin, and Wright again bested him. The Penn State junior used a take down and escape to hang on for a nail biting 3-2 win.
The consolation bracket will begin at 11 Saturday morning, with championship action starting at 7:30 Saturday night. The match-ups are as followed:
125 pounds: Nico Megaludis, PSU vs. Matt McDonough, Iowa
149: Frank Molinaro, PSU vs. Dylan Ness, Minnesota
165: David Taylor, PSU vs. Brandon Hatchett, Lehigh
174: Ed Ruth, PSU vs. Nick Amuchastegui, Stanford
184: Quentin Wright, PSU vs. Steve Bosak, Cornell
Bosak To Face Wright In All-Centre County Final
Working on the opposite mat of Wright, State High grad and Cornell senior Steve Bosak needed sudden victory against Austin Troutman of Appalachian State, but Bosak set up an all-Centre County final with Wright by recording a 3-2 victory.
Alton Rolling In Wrestlebacks
Dylan Alton opened Friday’s session IV needing a win to obtain All-American status, and he got it in thrilling fashion, topping Air Force’s Josh Kriemier 6-3, before closing out Penn State’s night by besting James Green of Nebraska 4-3 on a late take down. He will face Sanjaa Ganbayar of American in Saturday morning’s consolation quarterfinal for the opportunity to wrestle for third place. Cameron Wade fell shy of All-American status again this year, losing to Binghamton’s Nick Gwiazdowski 7-4 in the fourth round of wrestle backs.
Gregorian Award Update
The Gregorian Award is an award given to the wrestler who records the most pins in the least amount of time throughout the NCAA tournament, and Taylor is well on his way to winning it. After scoring his semifinals fall, Taylor now has five pins, matching American’s Ryan Flores. However, Taylor has needed less time to accumulate five falls, putting him into the lead heading into the final two sessions on Saturday.
Team Title All But Assured
With 124 team points, Penn State has eliminated all but Minnesota and Iowa in the team title race, who are each 36 points behind the Nittany Lions with 86 a piece.
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