Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1101150
T H E M O N T H I N . . . One could easily argue no sports team — professional or otherwise — has been as dominant as Penn State wrestling in the past decade. Not Alabama football. Not Connecticut women's basketball. Not the Golden State Warriors. Not even the New England Patriots. CODY GOODWIN USA TODAY Most of the best PSU wrestlers during this run have sat a season as redshirts, which sounds great in theory but can be difficult to sell to an 18-year-old who knows he could already be challenging for a national title. During the 2014-15 season in Happy Valley, this class' first on campus, [Bo] Nickal looked around and saw his fellow freshmen dominating in practice and at open tournaments and knew they'd be good someday – just not for another year. "You could tell how hard we were working to help our teammates get better," Nickal said. "It was tough to know you couldn't win a national title yourself that season, but I felt like we'd be special." RYAN HOCKENSMITH ESPN.COM O P I N I O N S ACADEMICS Winter sports teams set classroom record A school-record 91 student-athletes from Penn State's winter programs have earned Academic All-Big Ten recogni- tion. The 91 honorees are 14 more than last year. The Nittany Lions' previous high from the eight conference winter sports was 79 honorees in 2016. Three Penn Staters from winter teams earned perfect 4.0 grade-point aver- ages, including two members of the men's gymnastics squad: Jack Baldwin, an engineering student, and Noah Roberson, who is majoring in biomed- ical engineering. The other student- athlete to compile a 4.0 was Siena Salvaggio of the women's swimming and diving team. Salvaggio is majoring in 8- nance. The Academic All-Big Ten recipients for the women's hockey, men's and women's fencing and men's and women's indoor track teams will be an- nounced with the spring and at-large sport honorees later this year. The women's swimming and diving team led the Nittany Lions with 18 Aca- demic All-Big Ten honorees, including conference and NCAA champion Ally McHugh. The men's swimming and div- ing team totaled 13 recipients, giving the program a combined 31 honorees. The Penn State wrestling team, which last month won its fourth consecutive NCAA championship, had 15 Academic All-Big Ten honorees, the highest total among all conference schools. The hon- orees include three-time national champions Bo Nickal and Jason Nolf. The men's hockey team, which played for the Big Ten championship, had 14 honorees. The men's gymnastics team had 11 Academic All-Big Ten selections, tied for the highest in the conference, and the women's gymnastics squad had 11 honorees, an increase of 8ve from last year. The women's basketball team had 8ve Academic All-Big Ten honorees, and the men's basketball team had four re- cipients. ■ JOE KRENTZMAN & SON, INC. • Buyers and Brokers of Steel, Iron and Nonferrous Metals • Industrial Scrap Buyers • Container Service Available • Large Service Territory Since 1903 Lewistown, PA • Hollidaysburg, PA • DuBois, PA (800) 543-2000 • www.krentzman.net F irst i n S cra p