Blue White Illustrated

NCAA TOURNAMENT BY THE NUMBERS for the ;nal time in a PSU singlet, "because it's a team game. We want to win as a team, obviously, but we have 10 individuals, and as a coach my job is to help those in- dividuals. If the individuals do well, the team does well, so it's certainly bittersweet. It's tough. It's painful. It hurts when guys don't reach their goals. In the long run for those young guys, it will make them a bit hungrier. They'll have a little more ur- gency to improve. They'll come back with ;re. It still stinks to lose. There's no way around it. It really stinks to lose." That's the thing with this tournament: Fewer than 4 percent of the total 330 par- ticipants ;nish unbeaten. Everyone else tastes defeat at least once. Sophomore Matt McCutcheon (184) was Penn State's ;rst wrestler to bow out of the event, dropping his ;rst two matches. Junior Geno Morelli (165), who received a surprise wildcard bid a>er the conference tournament, ;nished 2-2 with a 5-3 open- ing-round win against 10th-seeded John Staudenmayer of North Carolina. Jimmy Gulibon (141) also fell short of placing, despite a 17-2 technical fall over ;>h- seeded Matt Manley in his ;rst match. Conaway was the only one of PSU's six quarter;nalists who didn't make it into the semi;nals, yet he still battled back for an All-America ;nish. Wrestling more matches than any of his teammates, Conaway ;nished the tournament in sixth place a>er compiling a 4-3 record. En route, he avenged a conference-tourna- ment loss to Wisconsin's Ryan Taylor and beat Iowa State's Earl Hall in order to secure a spot among the top eight of his weight class for the second time in his career. "That means a lot," Conaway said. "The goal is to be a national champ. Ob- viously, I didn't make that, but it's All- American again." Nolf and Nickal, who entered the tourney each with only one loss, were among the favorites to win their weight classes. Nolf appeared destined for a rubber match against Illinois sophomore Isaiah Martinez, the defending champion whose only career loss was to Nolf in a January dual meet, and destiny prevailed – not in PSU's favor. With the score knotted, 3-3, with 20 sec- onds le> in the third period, Martinez, who had been warned once for stalling, ducked under Nolf for the ultimate take- down. A quick escape from Nolf wasn't enough as he fell, 6-5. Nickal lost in similar dramatic fashion to Ohio State freshman Myles Martin, an opponent whom he had most recently pinned in the ;rst period of the Big Ten semi;nal. That was one of three Nickal wins over Martin this season, but when it counted most, Martin was victorious in a high-

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