Ranking Penn State’s top 3 wrestlers in 2021
By Chris Snyder
Breaking down PSU’s wrestling team to see who could be the top three wrestlers heading down the stretch in the 2021 season.
Everyone likes a good list, right? With the meat of Penn State Wrestling’s dual meet schedule coming up, now would be a perfect time for me to give you my data driven, highly quantitative, and comprehensive list of the Nittany Lions‘ top 3 wrestlers going into this season*.
With the loss of household names like Mark Hall, Vincenzo Joseph, and Anthony Cassar, this year’s team might lack the plethora of NCAA Championships under its belt but it certainly doesn’t lack talent. By Penn State Wrestling standards (and Cael Sanderson standards) this year’s team looks a bit like a rebuilding year, however a handful of individual champions wouldn’t be a surprise.
With that, let’s dive into Penn State Wrestling’s top three:
No. 3 – Roman Bravo Young Jr. 133
Remember when I said this was my list? Yep, I can hear fans already yelling “RBY could possibly be the top wrestler on this team!”. I believe the sky is the limit for Roman and so far the 2021 133-class looks like it could be his for the taking. And that’s if he can round into the top form we’ve seen in the past.
Building off an eighth place finish in the 2019 NCAA Championship, RBY had a stellar 2019-2020 campaign going 20-2 with some incredibly exciting wins against Michigan’s Sammy Alvarez and Iowa’s Austin DeSanto. His only two losses occurred at the hands of Wisconsin’s No.1 Seth Gross (6-5) and Northwestern’s No. 3 Sebastian Rivera (7-2).
The latter loss happening in the finals of the Big Ten Championships, and while the outcome wasn’t necessarily surprising, the final score certainly was. I’m going to chalk this up to Sebass catching a bit of a heater at the Big Tens. So far in the 2021 season, RBY has an undefeated record of 3-0 with three rather pedestrian matches.
We’ll know a lot more about Roman with a potential upcoming tilt against Iowa’s No. 5 DeSanto on 2/12…*checks recent notes* make that Ohio State’s Jordan Decatur on 2/19 (Thanks COVID!!). Is this factoring into why I have him #3? Maybe.
But, I think this has more to do with the potentially limitless talent of the next two wrestlers.