Blue White Illustrated

he Penn State wrestling team won its first regular-season national championship under Cael Sander- son on Feb. 21, in the process complet- ing the program's first unblemished season since 1972. The title and the undefeated mark re- duced by two the number of items missing from Sanderson's expansive wrestling resume. More than that, they represent the realization of a blueprint that he began drawing when he first took the job at Penn State in the spring of 2009. "My plans are big, and my vi- sion is big," Sanderson said in the open- ing statement of his introductory press conference. "It's just a matter of getting it done." Here we are. Those big plans have blossomed into championships, with the latest coming in dual meet form and then again at the Big Ten tourna- ment, and they have been founded in FAMILY ACT Cody and Cael Sanderson guid- ed the Lions to their first un- beaten and un- tied regular sea- son in more than four decades. Photo by Patrick Mansell BMAN WITH A PLAN Thanks to athletes from near and far Cael Sanderson's vision for the PSU wrestling program has become a reality , T part on a recruiting strategy that is based on three categories of student- athlete, three pillars of success, each represented by the seniors in his start- ing lineup. The foundation rests squarely on a wealth of talent from the school's tradi- tional recruiting footprint: New Jersey, New York and, of course, Pennsylvania. It includes athletes such as 133-pound Jordan Conaway, who opted to walk on with the Nittany Lions before clawing his way into the lineup. Wrestlers like Conaway comprise close to half of PSU's roster. Then there are the home-bred national recruits like 125-pound Nico Megaludis, a three-time Pennsylvania champ who could have wrestled for just about any- one but decided to stay home to com- pete for the state university. Sanderson refers to them as "superstar kids." Megaludis, he said, "is one of those guys who you know is a sure thing." At the peak – the third pillar – are the most sought-after high school prospects, blue-chippers from far cor- ners of the country, such as Morgan McIntosh – once the nation's No. 1 re- cruit and now its top-ranked 197- pounder. For the first time in Sanderson's coaching career, the building blocks to his design are fully in place, although injuries, like the winds of a storm, have tested their stability this season. That's what is different about this team com- pared to Sanderson's four NCAA tour- nament-winning teams of the past. Top to bottom through the starting lineup and with the depth behind it, Penn State has wrestlers who can more than handle their own against the toughest competition, as more than half of the starters (six) are currently ranked among the top five of their respective weight classes, and it's what helped them go undefeated and win the Dual Championship Series against Oklaho- ma State, 29-18. "It was a very fascinating and intrigu- ing lineup coming into the season, and we were confident," Sanderson said. "We thought we had a team that would JUDGMENT CALL

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