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NCAA Wrestling Championships: Penn State Wrestling’s paths to titles

By Chris Snyder

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 19: Nico Megaludis (L), Zain Retherford (C) and Morgan McIntosh of the Penn State Nittany Lions pose with the first place team trophy after the finals of the NCAA Wrestling Championships on March 19, 2016 at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 19: Nico Megaludis (L), Zain Retherford (C) and Morgan McIntosh of the Penn State Nittany Lions pose with the first place team trophy after the finals of the NCAA Wrestling Championships on March 19, 2016 at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images) /
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The 2021 NCAA Wrestling Championships kick off at promptly 11 a.m. EST on March 18th, and Penn State Wrestling figures to be in contention.

With a tremendous amount of wrestling coming up let’s take a look at the Nittany Lions and their individual paths to success, if things play out the way I hope they do.

The key word here is “hope,” so I’m going all in on chugging the blue and white Kool-aid, slapping on the blue and white overalls, and giant blue and white shades.

Here’s a look at Penn State Wrestling’s paths to a title at each weight class at the NCAA Wrestling Championships:

125

No. 23 Robert Howard

Penn State Wrestling fans are just happy to finally have an NCAA participant at 125 since He Who Should Not Be Named (initials NS) toed the line back in 2017.

And would you look at that? Right out of the gate, Howard gets a familiar foe in OSU’s No. 10 Malik Heinselman. These two have squared off twice this season, with both matches being close and unfortunately both matches going to Heinselman 5-2. The third time is the charm as Howard finally gets the best of Malik.

Next up would potentially be Utah Valley’s No. 7 Taylor LaMont. And he hasn’t exactly faced the best of the best this season in the Big 12. Only 3 of his 10 matches on the year were against top 25 grapplers. LaMont went 2-1 with his lone loss to No. 5 Brody Teske. Anyone remember him?

Let’s say Howard powers through LaMont and makes the quarter finals. This is where the fairy tale ends in the Championship bracket, as Howard would then face No. 2 Sam Latona. The Virginia Tech redshirt freshman is 10-0 this season, won his 1st ACC title, and is 30-2 the past two seasons combined.

Things will then have to shake out (in a good way) in the wrestlebacks for Howard to hopefully earn a spot in the 7th place match. This would absolutely be the best case scenario. A top 8 finish for Howard’s first PSU season would be a huge success.

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