Blue White Illustrated

T he constant chatter among Penn State wrestling fans about when they might see four-time PIAA champion Gavin Teasdale in the Nittany Lion lineup has been put to rest: They won't. Penn State coach Cael Sanderson con- firmed Jan. 23 that Teasdale, a 125-pound freshman, had been re- moved from the team's roster and that he will pursue a transfer to an- other institution. "Gavin is not going to be on our team; he's being removed from the roster right now," Sanderson said. "Don't expect to see Gavin. We obviously wish him well and expect him to transfer." Sanderson said the decision had been made a few days earlier. "Those are just decisions and different things that we'll have to look at moving forward," he said. "But we have some good kids in the program and we have some good kids coming in. "We care a lot about Gavin and wish him all the best. We'll try to help him land somewhere, whatever we can do for him. There are a lot of changes and moving parts in college athletics, and this is just another example of that." And that was that. Teasdale enrolled at Penn State in June but tweeted in Novem- ber that he had withdrawn from college because of health issues. He was reinstated on the roster in late December and reportedly was going to wrestle for Penn State in the Southern Scuffle. He was a late scratch in Chat- tanooga and he also scratched off the entry list of the Shorty Hitchcock Memo- rial Open at Millersville in January. Teasdale was 162-2 at Jefferson-Morgan High in southwestern Pennsylvania and last March became the state's 13th four- time titlist. He verbally committed to Iowa and planned on wrestling with Spencer Lee of Franklin Regional, who is now the Hawkeyes' 125-pound starter and owner of a 2018 NCAA title as a freshman. But Teasdale had second thoughts about Iowa and signed with Penn State instead. Penn State had Nick Suriano at 125 for one season and he was projected to be an All-American in 2017. But Suriano broke his ankle against Oklahoma State and did not compete in the Big Ten tournament or at NCAAs. He transferred to Rutgers, lost to Iowa's Lee in the 2018 125-pound finals Freshman Teasdale expected to transfer from Penn State TEASDALE | cuted an extremely athletic shoulder roll to avoid the two-pointer. Bravo-Young escaped in six seconds and had to ride Pletcher to win. He controlled Pletcher for eight seconds before they went out of bounds. He then took a stall call by hanging on Pletcher's legs, which stopped the clock with eight seconds remaining. He completed the ride for the 2-1 overtime upset win but his enthusias- tic slam of his headgear cost Penn State one team point. No. 5 Nick Lee followed with an equally big win, stopping No. 2 Joey McKenna, 7-6. "We believe in our guys, obviously, but, yeah, they wrestled a great match," Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said. "We've got a lot of matches le<. This was a great atmosphere but we're happy with the way our guys came in and wrestled today, for sure." Ohio State knew it was in trouble at 157, 165 and 174, with three No. 1- ranked Nittany Lions looming. Jason Nolf started o; that streak by man- handling Ke-Shawn Hayes by techni- cal fall, 21-6 in 5:51. Vincenzo Joseph followed by domi- nating childhood buddy Te'Shan Campbell, 10-2, at 165 pounds, and Mark Hall scored nine points in the third period en route to a 12-4 major decision over Ethan Smith. At heavyweight, Anthony Cassar had no problem with Chase Single- tary, winning Penn State's seventh bout of the night by an 18-8 score. A week before traveling to Colum- bus, Penn State welcomed :

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