Penn State Sports Magazine
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D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 4 41 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M ably weighed at least 174 pounds be- fore he got home from the Kansas City NCAA Championships last March, has won 49 of 51 bouts and has second- and first-place NCAA finishes, respec- tively, in his two Penn State seasons. He opened his junior year with a vic- tory over third-ranked Cade DeVos of South Dakota State in the NWCA All- Star Classic held in Rec Hall on Nov. 16. A taller DeVos was able to limit Haines offensively over the first five minutes with hand-fighting and tie-ups, but he paid for it with two stalling calls. Once on top in the final period, Haines stayed there and worked over DeVos, ultimately turning him in the waning seconds for a near fall and a 7-0 win. "He was staying away, and I was working through that," Haines said af- terward. "I knew if I kept that pressure on him, eventually they would call a stall." Haines said his new weight class fits him well. In fact, he still has to cut some weight to make 174, but not nearly as much. "It was good. I'm competing with higher energy than it has been in the past," he said. Five Nittany Lions participated in the all-star event, and each had the option not to wrestle the following day against what would be an outmanned Drexel team, but Haines and Starocci — not surprisingly — chose to compete against the Dragons. Haines had a takedown and two nearfalls in the first period and one of each in the second to build a 16-0 lead on Jack Janda and end the match by technical fall in 4:03 during Penn State's season-opening 41-3 victory. "There was no doubt for me," Haines said afterward about whether he would wrestle. "I just love to compete, and I think it's a great opportunity to get two weigh-ins back-to-back, like a tourna- ment setting. I just wanted to make the most of that opportunity and just use it as a practice." A Disciplined Life As far as practice goes, the heavier Haines now has some new training part- ners in the Penn State wrestling room, which he said can be good and bad. "Getting to wrestle different guys is a cool experience," Haines said. "I'm with a different set of partners now because of weight management. It allows me to wrestle some heavier guys, and I get stronger wrestling heavier guys. "I'm wrestling anybody from 125 to heavyweight. I wrestled Greg [Kerkvliet, Penn State's senior 250-pound NCAA heavyweight champ] a few weeks ago, and I don't know if I want to do that again." Penn State coach Cael Sanderson calls Haines a consistent competitor. "He's trying to get better all the time. I think with the way he approaches competi- tion, he'll keep getting better," Sander- son said. "And I think him moving up, he's going to be better. He's going to be able to use a lot of his strengths. He obviously has great skill and tenacity, but just being able to use conditioning as more of a fac- tor [will be beneficial]. He's always used that. But 157 was a haul for him." Sanderson said he didn't think Haines could hold the weight two years in a row. "He made it [the first year], and he did an awesome job," the coach explained. "And then the next year, you're thinking, well, he's never going to see 157 again. But he is so disciplined in the way he lives his life that he was able to do it. "For him, it's just [a matter of] con- tinuing to compete with enthusiasm and not trying to defend anything. It's just, let's keep getting better. The goal is to see how great of a wrestler you can become. It's not about winning and losing, and if you do that, the wins and losses will take care of themselves." Always Improving Haines already has a huge win over the wrestler who will be his chief competi- tor this season, Missouri's top-ranked Keegan O'Toole, a two-time NCAA champ who, like Haines, moved up to 174 this year. Haines and O'Toole met in a World Team Trials consolation match in September, and Haines emerged with a 6-0 win. That was freestyle and included no mat wrestling, where Haines excels, and the match also proved that he could win a battle against O'Toole from the neutral position. "It was a good experience … a lot dif- ferent than folkstyle," Haines said. "Any time you can wrestle a high-level com- petitor like that is a good gauge to see what you have to work on. I was fortunate to wrestle him before the season started." Before, during and after Haines' wres- tling season is hunting season. An avid deer hunter and small-game hunter, Haines relishes his time in State Col- lege's surrounding forest land as well as the area around his Adams County home in south-central Pennsylvania. "Hunting is one of those things where there's always something you can im- prove on, similar to wrestling," he said. "It's like you're never going to be able to hit a peak, but just chasing being better is what I like about it. It's one-on-one with the animals you're chasing, which is pretty neat. "I can't stress that enough. I wish ev- erybody had that opportunity to go out and be a part of the natural ecosystem and just experience that at least one time. It definitely will change your perspective on things." And lately, Haines has been all about change. ■ "He's going to be better. He's going to be able to use a lot of his strengths. He obviously has great skill and tenacity, but just being able to use conditioning as more of a factor [will be beneficial]. He's always used that. But 157 was a haul for him." C A E L S A N D E R S O N O N H A I N E S ' M O V E T O 1 7 4 P O U N D S