Penn State Wrestling: Can the Nittany Lions do anything surprising anymore?

Black Knight Open

As I mentioned earlier, 13 Penn State wrestlers piled into their domination-mobile this past Sunday and took the four hour trek east to West Point, New York. And all they did was kick ass and chew gum. Unfortunately for everyone else at the Black Knight Open, gum was in very short supply.

197 – Lucas Cochran – 5th place

Cochran started off the open with a bang by picking up a 13-1 major decision over Army’s Danny Lawrence, but unfortunately, he fell to Buffalo’s Sam Mitchell in the quarterfinals 5-2.

Lucas then battled his way to the fifth-place match by dispatching Central Michigan’s Cade Dallwitz 16-2 and Campbell’s Levi Hopkins 10-5. And in the fifth-place match Cochran continued to shine as he outclassed Buffalo’s Eli Sheeran to the tune of a 9-4 decision.

125 – Gary Steen – 3rd place
184 – Donovan Ball – 3rd place

Penn State’s newest starter at 125 had a solid tournament as he won his first two matches of the tournament with a 5-4 decision over Columbia’s Yanni Vines and a 10-3 decision against Buffalo’s Patrick Adams.

Steen then faced a difficult opponent in the semifinals where Army’s No. 13 Ethan Berginc stood in his way to the finals. Gary put up a fight, but it simply wasn’t enough as he fell in a decision 4-2. But all was not lost for Steen because he composed himself after the loss and took care of business against Campbell’s Zander Phaturos to finish third following the 3-2 decision win.

Ball had a slightly different path to the third place match as he earned a bye in the first round. And in his first action of the day in the quarterfinals, Donovan plowed through Central Michigan’s Ben Cushman 7-3 to earn the decision.

Hofstra’s No. 26 ranked Jacob Ferreira was up next in the semifinals and although the match was a nail-biter, it didn’t go Ball’s way as he dropped a decision 3-2.

The tight matches continued for Donovan, but this time he was on the right side of the outcome by sliding by Army’s Sahm Abdulrazzaq 4-3 to take third place.

141 – David Evans – 2nd place
157 – Terrell Barraclough – 2nd place
165 – Matt Lee – 2nd place

David Evans, Terrell Barraclough, and Matt Lee all steamrolled their way to the finals by winning a combined 66-19. This also includes two major decisions (both by Lee), a technical fall (Barraclough), and a fall (Evans).

That was obviously the good news for this trio.

The bad news? Each one of these guys had to face very familiar opponents in the finals.

141 – Beau Bartlett – 1st place
149 – Shayne Van Ness – 1st place
157 – Levi Haines – 1st place
165 – Alex Facundo – 1st place
197 – Max Dean – 1st place

And as you can probably guess at this point, the familiar opponents I was referring to happened to be their teammates. Out of the 10 finals matches in the 2022 Black Knight Open, three of them featured an all Nittany Lion final.

Beau Bartlett cruised to the finals by winning a technical fall, major decision, and decision, but the final was far from a walk in the park.

The match was tied 1-1 at the end of regulation as the scoring came down to an escape each for Evans and Bartlett. And in sudden victory, Bartlett scored the first takedown of the match to secure the title with only :27 seconds remaining.

Levi Haines’ march to the finals wasn’t quite as dominant as Bartlett’s, but at no point was he ever in danger of losing thanks to a combined score of 32-9 in his first three matches.

And the finals matchup between Barraclough and Haines did not disappoint in anyway. The match was tied 0-0 going into the second period where Terrell secured the first points by earning an early escape. Both guys finished the second period squared up and the match went to the third period with Barraclough clinging to a 1-0 lead.

Haines was down to start the third and an early escape of his own would allow the match to come down to a deciding takedown. But Barraclough had other ideas.

Terrell rode Levi more than halfway through the third period which put his riding time up to over a 1:00. And just when things looked bleak for Haines, he was able to sneak out and pull the incredible reversal!

Haines controlled Barraclough for the remainder of the third period to wipe away Terrell’s riding time point and to secure the title 2-1 in impressive fashion.

I don’t know if any of the Penn State faithful know this, but something tells me Levi Haines is going places!

And yes, that was sarcasm. Please don’t hate me.

In the last Penn State vs. Penn State finals, Alex Facundo squared off against Matt Lee for the title at 165. And this match was far from close as Facundo bested Lee to the tune of a 10-2 major decision.

Look, is Matt Lee a good wrestler? Absolutely. He has the same DNA and blood running through his veins as all-time Nittany Lion great Nick Lee does. But in this match, it did not matter because Alex Facundo is simply that much better at this point in his career. Which is a testament to how good of a wrestler Facundo is at such a young age.

Speaking of super talented wrestling youngsters, Shayne Van Ness appears to fit this bill as well.

Van Ness crushed Buffalo’s Kaleb Burgess 15-7 in the quarterfinals and walked through the IU’s seasoned veteran Graham Rooks 8-2 to punch his ticket to the finals. There Van Ness continued his impressive freshman run by downing Central Michigan’s No. 23 ranked Johnny Lovett 5-3 to take home the title at 149.

And last but certainly not least we have the performance of Max Dean.

Throughout the entire day, Dean did not give up a single point to his opponents. This included a first-round pin (1:55), a 15-0 technical fall in the quarterfinals, an injury defeat following the first period in the semifinals as Dean was already leading 5-0, and another first round pin in the finals (1:15) against No. 25 Trey Rogers of Hofstra.

For obvious reasons, Max Dean was named the Outstanding Wrestler of the 2022 Black Knight Open.