Big Ten Power Rankings: Where does Penn State Wrestling stand heading into conference play

Dual Rank: 13
Record: 6-1
Ranked Wrestlers: 8
125 No. 7 Eric Barnett
133 No. 19 Taylor LaMont
141 No. 22 Joe Zargo
149 No. 2 Austin Gomez
157 No. 16 Garrett Model
165 No. 4 Dean Hamiti
197 No. 13 Braxton Amos
285 No. 11 Trent Hillger

At first glance, Wisconsin looks like they could be a contender in the Big Ten. But when it comes to wrestling there are many factors involved.

Take for example Wisconsin’s first two dual meets on the season in the Battle in the River City Tournament, a 35-3 beatdown of Chattanooga and a 31-6 whooping of Buffalo. So far so good for Bucky Badger.

Then came the matchup against No. 7 (at the time No. 14) Iowa State in the finals. Most wrestling fans would expect a fairly tight dual meet and I would venture to guess most people would have Wisconsin winning.

Well, as it turns out with most of my predictions, I could not be more wrong.

Iowa State absolutely throttled Wisconsin to the tune of 26-6. Every single ranked Badger wrestler, outside of Garrett Model, took a loss in the dual meet. This includes two grapplers losing to lower ranked guys and an astonishing three losing to unranked wrestlers. Taylor LaMont, Joe Zargo, and top five ranked Austin Gomez all lost by a combined score of 29-13 in lopsided decisions.

The Badgers have been able to regroup following their lone loss and it started with a road win against No. 14 Cornell (19-13) on November 19th. Wisconsin then followed this up with a win against (surprise, surprise) Princeton (38-3), Penn (27-9), and Drexel (37-3).

Next on the schedule for Wisconsin are the Midlands Championships on December 29th and 30th.