Penn State wins its fifth Big Ten wrestling team title in six seasons

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Despite losing five matches in a row on March 6 and losing three of six finals matches, the Penn State wrestling team ran away with the team title at the 2016 Big Ten Wrestling Championships in Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa.

The Nittany Lions won their fifth conference championship in the past six years, just missing a team record for points scored in a conference championship. Penn State’s all-time record is 151, amassed in 2013.

Penn State piled up 150.5 points this year to easily outdistance second-place Iowa with 127. Ohio State was third with 126, Nebraska fourth with 117 and Rutgers fifth with 106.5.

The Nittany Lions won three of four awards at the conclusion of the tournament: Cael Sanderson was named Coach of the Year, Zain Retherford was named Outstanding Wrestler of the Year and Jason Nolf was named Freshman of the Year.

Eight Penn State wrestlers earned automatic berths to the 2016 NCAA Championships, set for Thursday, March 17, through Saturday, March 19, in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Retherford (149), Bo Nickal (174) and Morgan McIntosh (197) will go as champions. Nico Megaludis (125), Jimmy Gulibon (141) and Jason Nolf (157) were runners-up. Jordan Conaway (133) placed fourth and Matt McCutcheon (184) placed fifth.

“It’s a tough conference and it’s a small tournament with 14 great teams and wrestling programs, so there’s not a lot of room for error. I’m really proud of our team. They stepped up. They wrestled well. You win the Big Ten tournament, you’ve got to be happy,” head coach Cael Sanderson told the Big Ten Network.

Geno Morelli (165) placed eighth and would need the NCAA to grant two at-large qualifiers at that weight from the Big Ten to earn a trip to New York.

Heavyweight Nick Nevills finished 1-2 and failed to place among the top six at 285. He is ineligible for an at-large selection.

Penn State had dropped two consecutive finals matches — at 125 and 141 — when Retherford stepped on the mat against Iowa’s Brandon Sorensen. It was the only finals matchup of undefeated wrestlers.

Retherford didn’t take long to establish his dominance, scoring a takedown midway through the first period, adding an escape in the second and riding Sorensen the entire third for a thorough 4-0 win.

“A match is a match. I love to compete. I love this sport. Any time you can compete in front of a big crowd like this it’s awesome,” Retherford told the Big Ten Network.

“I’m most proud of my team, my coaches and just the way this team in particular has approached competing. It’s a lot of fun to compete with them. It rubs off on yourself. It’s a lot of fun for me to compete with guys who also like to compete hard.”

Penn State dropped its third title tilt, at 157, before picking up another title. Nickal dominated Zach Brunson, of Illinois, 18-9. Nickal racked up six takedowns and added a set of four nearfall points to help fuel his win over an opponent he had pinned in the dual meet.

Nickal joined David Taylor and Ed Ruth as the only Nittany Lions to win conference crowns as freshmen.

“I felt like I performed pretty well. It was pretty exciting. It was good to start the postseason off strong. I think it was a good tournament overall,” Nickal told the Big Ten Network.

“I wrestled like I know how to wrestle. Control the ties. Don’t really have a game plan. I just do whatever comes. Underhooks were open and double legs were open, so that’s what I did.”

The Nittany Lions’ final title came at 197. McIntosh used a first-period takedown and some impenetrable defense to nip Iowa’s Nathan Burak, 3-2, for his second consecutive championship.

“It is tough. I don’t know if I can really describe it in words right now,” McIntosh told the Big Ten Network. “Everyone wrestles hard and you’re not going to have any really easy matches. Even the guys you dominate, they’re still fighting and they don’t give up and break like you see in high school. It’s rewarding and it’s fun and I’m definitely going to miss it after this year.”

Sanderson seemed pretty pleased with his entire team, but especially so with his three champions.

“I thought they had outstanding performances. This is about as good of an environment as you can wrestle in. You wrestle at Iowa in a sold-out crowd in a tight team race. Our guys wrestled well. They stepped up,” he said.
Megaludis, for the second straight time, lost in sudden victory to Ohio State’s defending conference and NCAA champion Nathan Tomasello. Just as he did in the Feb. 5 Jordan Center match, Tomasello countered a Megaludis shot and scrambled behind for a winning takedown and 3-1.

Gulibon was a surprise finalist at 141 after struggling through an inconsistent year and being seeded eighth. He came alive in Iowa City in his run to the final. Once there, though, Rutgers’ Anthony Ashnault owned him, especially in the second period when he tilted the Nittany Lion twice to open a 6-0 lead in what would become a 9-0 win.

Then, in one of the most highly anticipated rematches of the tournament, Nolf met Isaiah Martinez, of Illinois. Nolf had pinned Martinez in the dual meet, ending the 61-match win streak Martinez had enjoyed since starting his collegiate career.

The match lasted 11 minutes through seven minutes of regulation and two sets of sudden victory and tiebreaker periods. Martinez fought off several Nolf takedown attempts and was declared the winner of the 3-3 match because of 22 seconds more riding time in the second set of tiebreaker periods.

Conaway went 4-2 on the weekend, his only two losses to Ryan Taylor of Wisconsin, 10-5 in the quarterfinals and then 5-4 in the third-place bout.

McCutcheon struggled to a 2-2 record to finish fifth, well below his No. 2 seed.

Nickal, like most qualifiers from most teams, already had his sights set on the NCAA tournament.

“I’m super proud of my team. We’re ready to roll. One more tournament and make some history,” he said. “Madison Square Garden is going to be incredible. I’m super excited to get there. I’m just looking forward to wrestling. It will be my first trip to NCAAs. It’s been something I’ve been dreaming about since I was 8 years old. I’m excited for that.”

NOTES: Six teams (Ohio State, Iowa, Rutgers, Penn State, Illinois and Wisconsin) accounted for the 10 individual champions. In addition to Penn State’s three champs, Iowa and Ohio State claimed two each. Rutgers, Illinois and Wisconsin claimed the others. … The Big Ten had its number of automatic qualifiers to the NCAA tournament reduced by one to 70 before the tournament started. Maryland’s starting heavyweight was injured and couldn’t participate, so the NCAA took a qualifier away from the Big Ten.