Penn State Wrestling: B1G Championships Grades, MVP
By Chris Snyder
165 – Joe Lee – Fr.
Record: 2-3
Place: 8th
Grade: D
Wins
No. 14 Josh Otto (WIS), 4-3 dec.
No. 5 Andrew Sparks (MINN), fall 0:45
Losses
No. 11 Jonathan Spadafora (MD), 5-7 SV
No. 9 Gerrit Nijenhuis (PUR), fall 4:29
No. 12 David Ferrante (NU), 6-10 dec.
I really, really hate to do this. And for a number of reasons.
First off, who am I to judge? As I’ve stated before, I don’t have to somehow pour myself into a singlet and grapple against guys who are unbelievably strong for their size.
Nor do I want to piss off someone who could tie my arms and legs together and throw me out with the trash using only their left pinky finger.
Also, we don’t know Lee’s injury status. Maybe he was hampered with a painful and nagging injury and it was simply a miracle he could wrestle at all. And here I’m giving the guy a D. I have no idea what he was going through.
But, looking purely at his match results in the B1G’s, I’m not mad at Joe Lee’s performance, I’m just disappointed.
You absolutely cannot lose to a wrestler you pinned less than two weeks ago. Furthermore, you cannot lose to a wrestler from Maryland. How else can I keep the “Maryland should just pack in their wrestling program and quit” talk going?
The lone bright spot for Lee was when he pinned Minnesota’s No. 5 Andrew Sparks in his second match on the consolation side. He then followed it up with a loss to lower ranked wrestler Gerrit Nijenhuis (No. 9) and a loss to double digit seed David Ferrante (No. 12) in the 7th place match.
The only place to go from here is up for Joe Lee.