Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1101150
ael Sanderson doesn't move much when he's in the corner of the mat watching his Penn State wrestlers compete. His steely stare and intense glare are usually enough to let not only his wrestlers, but the officials as well, know what's on his mind. But when the head referee on Mat 2 in Round 2 failed to award two points to Penn State's 133-pound freshman Roman Bravo-Young on an apparent takedown against Iowa's Austin De- Santo at the NCAA Wrestling Champi- onships, Sanderson charged on the mat like he was set to hit a freight train dou- ble-leg on somebody… anybody. DeSanto had bounced up immediately from the flurry of action, and his mo- mentum carried him and Bravo-Young off the mat and into the scorer's table as Bravo-Young's head bounced off of De- Santo's hip rather hard and then grazed the table, too. Sanderson and his brother, Cody, and trainer Dan Month- ley tended to a slightly dazed Bravo- Young and deemed him healthy. Just before the restart, Sanderson no- ticed that Bravo-Young hadn't received any points, and that's when he ap- peared on the mat, joining the two wrestlers and two officials. He threw the challenge block, threw his hands in the air and threw a fit while repeatedly saying in an animated style, "That was two, that was two." A few minutes later, he was informed that not only was it not two but that Penn State had just lost one team point because of a failure to comply with con- trol of the mat area. And Bravo-Young lost, too. Suffice it to say, that was one of the few losing moments during Penn State's three-day weekend at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh March 21-23. The Nittany Lions scored 137.5 points, a resounding 41 points ahead of Ohio State, 53.5 in front of Oklahoma State and 61.5 better than Iowa, which en- dured a 2-for-7 performance in the tournament's quarterfinal round. Penn State's nine wrestlers were vic- torious in 35 of their 46 bouts at na- tionals. Three of those wrestlers won individual titles and seven achieved All-America status, more than any other team. Of the 11 losses the Nittany Lions suffered, four were by the two wrestlers who did not place: 12th- seeded Brady Berge at 149 pounds and second-seeded Shakur Rasheed at 184. Those gaudy num- bers added up to the Lions' eighth national champi- onship in the past nine seasons. It was the team's second four-year winning streak in that span, and Penn State has now produced five or more All-Americans in each national tournament since 2011. | C EIGHTH WONDER Jason Nolf, Bo Nickal and Anthony Cassar lead the way, as PSU extends its reign by winning its eighth title in nine seasons W R E S T L I N G • P O S T S E A S O N R O U N D U P

