No. 1 Penn State Wrestling outlasts No. 8 Nebraska 21-13: Full results
By Chris Snyder
No. 1 Penn State Wrestling returned to the friendly confines of Rec Hall where they bested the No. 8 Nebraska Cornhuskers 21-13 in a Sunday afternoon dual meet
The No. 1 ranked Penn State Wrestling hosted the No. 8 Cornhuskers in Rec Hall for a post-brunch dual meet Sunday, and while the the atmosphere was a little different than it was Friday night inside the rollicking Bryce Jordan Center when Penn State crushed Ohio State 32-7, the results were similar.
Just because there wasn’t a capacity crowd inside the typically staid basketball arena doesn’t mean it still wasn’t an impressive performance Sunday for Penn State Wrestling.
The Nittany Lions showed no signs of a post-dual hangover as they powered their way to a 21-13 win over Nebraska even with three of their starters out of the lineup.
Onto the action!
How No. 1 Penn State Wrestling knocked off No. 8 Nebraska:
The dual started out at 125 where Drew Hildebrandt pitched a shutout in a scrappy 4-0 decision to put Penn State on the board with the early 3-0 lead.
But the next match was anything but scrappy as Roman Bravo-Young went to absolute work on his Nebraska counterpart. How about five first-period takedowns? Yes, please! And that was just the beginning.
RBY was utterly brilliant in his 23-8 technical fall and the Big Ten Network announcers put it best when they said he makes things look “effortless”.
I agree.
Penn State lad the dual meet 8-0 following the first two matches with a ranked matchup between Nick Lee and Chad Red Jr. next up on the afternoon.
And Lee was able to improve his career record to 4-0 against Red Jr. with a workman-like performance in earning the 4-1 decision. The Nittany Lions continued to push their lead to 11-0 with yet another ranked matchup next up on the docket.
What the Penn State Wrestling faithful probably weren’t expecting in the Bartlett matchup was one of the best takedowns you will ever see. Unfortunately, Beau was on the receiving end of the takedown with Ridge Lovett earning the two points.
Midway through the first period, it appeared Bartlett was in trouble. But he was able to free himself of Lovett’s grip and secure a front headlock while having control of his opponent’s right ankle. To be more specific, Beau had Ridge’s right leg above his head.
I’m still not exactly what I saw or how it happened, but Lovett was able to free his right leg, drive forward, and reverse the insane position to earn the takedown on Bartlett. Wow was that impressive.
As for the match?
It didn’t get any better for Bartlett as he dropped the decision 6-0 and Nebraska was on the board for the first time.
On Friday night under the bright lights of the Bryce Jordan Center, Terrell Barraclough was able to win his first match of the year in a regular dual. That was the good news.
The bad news for Barraclough was that his opponent today would be Nebraska’s No. 5 ranked grappler at 157, Peyton Robb.
Terrell battled tough but he couldn’t find many angles or openings against Robb and he dropped the 3-2 decision. The Cornhuskers continued to cut into Penn State’s lead with the dual sitting at 11-6 going into intermission.
Coming out of the break Creighton Esdell once again filled in for Brady Berge and he once again put up a “W” for the Nittany Lions. Esdell looked impressive on the afternoon in cruising to a 9-2 decision and Penn State extended their lead to 14-6.
Carter Starocci was also out of the lineup on Sunday and Mason Manville got the call to face a challenging opponent in Nebraska’s No. 5 ranked Mikey Labriola.
There’s nothing like wrestling your first two matches since 2019 and having to face No. 7 Ethan Smith and No. 5 Mikey Labriola in back-to-back matches. Which was exactly the case for Manville.
How does the saying go? “Throw them into a burning inferno and see if they can swim?”. It’s something like that.
Mason fought tough but needless to say he wasn’t able to pull out the upset. Instead, Labriola took control of the match and never looked back in handing Manville a major decision loss 14-4.
With only three matches left in the dual, the Nittany Lions were holding onto a 14-10 lead.
No problem!
Aaron Brooks put together a nearly flawless match against No. 9 Taylor Venz. Aaron continued to put pressure on Taylor from the opening whistle and landed takedown after takedown to earn the major decision 14-4. The win gave Penn State some breathing room as they were up 18-10 with two matches to go!
Max Dean ended up being the third Nittany Lion starter out on the afternoon, but how many teams in the nation have an All-American as a backup? I’m going to guess “not many”.
Michael Beard got the call against one of the nation’s best at 197 in Nebraska’s No. 3 ranked Eric Schultz. Beard sprinted out to a 2-0 lead in the first period with a takedown, however, Schultz earned the last escape to make the score 2-1 going into the 2nd period.
Schultz then rode Beard for the duration of the 2nd period to push his riding time advantage to well over a minute. With Beard in top position to start the third, it would be imperative for him to cut this time to under a minute.
Which is exactly what he was able to do.
Beard then cut Schultz loose midway through the third period and promptly landed another takedown to push ahead 4-3. But this wouldn’t be a Penn State Wrestling recap article if it didn’t contain anything about the officiating.
Shortly after the takedown, Beard was slapped with another stall warning which tied the match at 4-4 with only a handful of seconds remaining in the match. Needless to say, both stall warnings on Beard were incredibly questionable.
Beard opted to start at neutral in the restart to try and get a takedown to win the match. But Schultz ran away from Beard and didn’t attempt anything resembling wrestling as the final seconds ticked away. It was a strong effort by Beard but in the end, it was a decision loss 5-4.
Next up was the final match and the final ranked matchup of the afternoon with Penn State still winning 18-13.
And the term “ranked” can be used loosely because at no point did Greg Kerkvliet look to be anything other than fully in control. This is the outcome of the match in a nutshell.
https://twitter.com/pennstateWREST/status/1490399110364467203
Kerkvliet strolled to an 8-2 decision over Lance and Penn State prevailed on the afternoon by beating the Cornhuskers 21-13.
Next up for Penn State is a little rest period as their next dual isn’t until February 20th against Rider. The wrestling action in Rec Hall is set to start at 2:00 p.m. and will be available to watch with a B1G+ subscription.
No. 1 Penn State 21, No. 7 Nebraska 13
125 No. 6 Drew Hildebrandt (PSU) dec over Jeremiah Reno (NU) 4-0, NU 0 PSU 3
133 No. 1 Roman Bravo-Young (PSU) tech fall over Dominic Serrano (NU) 23-8, NU 0 PSU 8
141 No. 1 Nick Lee (PSU) dec over No. 8 Chad Red Jr. (NU) 4-1, NU 0 PSU 11
149 No. 8 Ridge Lovett (NU) dec over No. 18 Beau Bartlett (PSU) 6-0, NU 3 PSU 11
157 No. 5 Peyton Robb (NU) dec over Terrell Barraclough (PSU) 3-2, NU 6 PSU 11
165 Creighton Edsell (PSU) dec over Tahjae Jenkins-Harris (NU) 9-2, NU 6 PSU 14
174 No. 5 Mikey Labriola (NU) maj dec over Mason Manville (PSU) 14-4, NU 10 PSU 14
184 No. 1 Aaron Brooks (PSU) maj dec over No. 9 Taylor Venz (NU) 14-4, NU 10 PSU 18
197 No. 3 Eric Schultz (NU) dec over Michael Beard (PSU) 5-4, NU 13 PSU 18
285 No. 5 Greg Kerkvliet (PSU) dec over No. 12 Christian Lance (NU) 8-2, NU 13 PSU 21