Ranking Cael Sanderson’s top 10 wins at Penn State
This past Sunday, Penn State Wrestling coach Cael Sanderson earned his 200th career dual meet win and his 156th win as the head coach of the Nittany Lions.
We thought this would be the perfect time to take a look back and rank the top 10 wins in the Cael Sanderson era at Penn State:
No. 10
November 15, 2009
University Park, PA
Bloomsburg 15, No. 15 Penn State 23
You can’t get to 200 without first getting to one.
Well, in this case it was really Sanderson’s 45th career dual meet victory as a collegiate head coach. More importantly, though, this was his first at the helm of the Nittany Lions.
Sanderson inherited an experienced wrestling squad going into the 2009-2010 season, and after coming off a defeat on the road at Lehigh, Penn State Wrestling took on another bus-distance opponent, Bloomsburg, in the friendly confines of Rec Hall.
Over 4,000 Penn State fans packed Rec Hall to witness the magic of a Cael Sanderson coached team first-hand. They weren’t disappointed.
Aided by victories from each of Penn State’s three All-American grapplers (Frank Molinaro 149, Cyler Sanderson 157, and Dan Vallimont 165), the Nittany Lions built an early lead over Bloomsburg (14-9).
The fighting Huskies weren’t throwing in the towel, though. Bloomsburg took both the 174 and 184 matches and grabbed the lead (15-14) for the first time all day.
PSU’s Clay Steadman fired up the crowd with a decision victory at 197 and No. 20 Cameron Wade blew the roof off Rec Hall by pinning his opponent at heavyweight.
Things weren’t easy during Cael’s inaugural season, as evident with the tough win against unranked Bloomsburg. The Nittany Lions would go on to finish 13-6-1 on the season.