Victory Bell Rings
Fansided

Penn State Wrestling: 5 Things we’ve learned so far this season

By Chris Snyder

PHILADELPHIA, PA - NOVEMBER 18: Roman Bravo-Young of the Penn State Nittany Lions stands with head coach Cael Sanderson during a time-out in the 133 pound championship match at the Keystone Classic on November 18, 2018 at The Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - NOVEMBER 18: Roman Bravo-Young of the Penn State Nittany Lions stands with head coach Cael Sanderson during a time-out in the 133 pound championship match at the Keystone Classic on November 18, 2018 at The Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 5
Next
Penn State Wrestling
Terrell Barraclough of the Penn State Nittany Lions wrestles Doug Zapf of the Penn Quakers  (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images) /

Things we’ve learned No. 2 – Penn State needs to figure out someone for either 157 or 165

Going into this season it was no secret, the Penn State Wrestling lineup was going to have some holes in it. At that point, it was narrowed down to 125, 149, 157, and 165.

Beau Bartlett is clearly going to be the answer at 149 for the remainder of the season, but what can Penn State Wrestling fans expect from him? Maybe we’ll answer this later.

And it appeared Cael Sanderson had his answer at 125 with the Nittany Lions picking up a top four transfer from Central Michigan (Drew Hildebrandt). There has still been no official word from Penn State as they will neither confirm nor deny Hildebrandt’s transfer.

I for one won’t be worried until mid-January.

If Drew hasn’t wrestled for Penn State at that point, then they might be scrambling at 125 for the rest of the season.

This leads us to the last two weight classes in question, 157 and 165.

Cael Sanderson and company have sent out Joey Blumer, Terrell Barraclough, Tony Negron, and Joe Lee at 157, while Creighton Edsell has been the lone grappler at 165.

These two weight classes are now a combined 5-11 on the season and Penn State has yet to win a match at 157 in a dual meet. For a team with national title aspirations, it’s okay to punt on one weight class, but it’s almost impossible to get a goose egg from two.

Joe Lee was possibly going to be able to do some damage this season dropping down from 165 to 157. And he did make his season debut earlier this week in the Collegiate National Duals, but to say it was underwhelming is a bit of an understatement.

The only impression I got from his match was simply the fact he wrestled. That’s it. He slapped on a singlet, toed the line against a decent Cornell wrestler, and he did next to nothing in a 4-2 decision loss.

But I wholeheartedly trust in Cael Sanderson. He will do what’s best for the Penn State Wrestling Team when it comes to 157 and 165. However, if they want to win a championship this season then someone is going to have to emerge from either of these weights.

Home/Penn State Nittany Lions