Blue White Illustrated

P enn State finished on top of the podium at three weight classes at the Big Ten championships in East Lansing, Mich. It was Ohio State, however, that left with the team crown. Three Penn State wrestlers claimed individual titles at the conference tournament March 3-4 at Michigan State's Breslin Center, but as a whole, the team fell short of a champi- onship. By the end of the tourney's second day, Ohio State had claimed four individual ti- tles and outscored the Nittany Lions in the team race, 164.5-148, to claim its second conference championship in a row. Penn State, which entered the championship round with six final- ists, sent nine wrestlers to the NCAA tournament March 15-17 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. Zain Retherford (149 pounds), who now holds the longest winning streak in school history, was the first Nittany Lion to stand atop the podium at Big Tens. Meeting Iowa's Brandon Sorensen for the sixth time in his career, the Penn State senior prevailed, 2-0, to claim the title. He was later named Big Ten Wrestler of the Year for the second consecutive season. At 157 pounds, Jason Nolf bowed out of the tournament prior to the semifinal for precautionary reasons. Competing for the first time since suffering a knee injury in a dual meet against Rutgers in late January, Nolf won his first two matches, with his initial victory coming by fall against Michigan State's Jake Tucker. After earning a 15-2 major decision against Minnesota's seventh-seeded Jake Short in the quarterfinal round, he injury-defaulted out of competition without suffering a loss. At 165 pounds, Vincenzo Joseph drew a rematch against Illinois' Isaiah Martinez. Joseph and Martinez met three times during the 2016-17 sea- son, with Martinez winning twice be- fore being pinned by Joseph in the NCAA final. In their only meeting of this year, Martinez outdueled the Nittany Lion sophomore for a 4-1 victory. Mark Hall got Penn State back on the winning track at Big Tens with his performance at 174 pounds. The sophomore defeated Michigan's Myles Amine, 4-3, for the title, and Bo Nickal followed by winning his second consecutive league crown at 184. Nickal beat Ohio State's Myles Mar- tin, 7-4, with 1 minute, 42 seconds in riding time, in yet another rematch of league rivals. Shakur Rasheed fell short of the title at 197 against defending conference champion Kellen Moore of Ohio State. In a close battle, Moore escaped with the 8-4 win. Heavyweight Nick Nevills was one of three Nittany Lions (not counting Nolf) who fell short of the finals but placed. Nevills lost to eventual champion Kyle Snyder of Ohio State in the semifinal round but rallied back for a third-place finish. In the consolation final against Iowa's Sam Stoll, Nevills pulled off a 4-point move in the third period en route to a 5-1 vic- tory. In his first collegiate postseason ac- tion, freshman Nick Lee finished in third place at 141. Lee beat Purdue's Nate Limmex by major decision, 15-5, including 3:04 riding time in the con- solation final. Corey Keener also secured a spot at NCAAs with a seventh-place finish. In the deciding match vs. Purdue's Ben Thornton, Keener took off in the third period and rolled to an 11-3 major decision. Carson Kuhn (125) saw his brief stint with the Nittany Lions come to a close in East Lansing. After joining the team as a midyear graduate trans- fer, Kuhn went 3-3 and finished in 11th place, one spot shy of an auto- matic qualifying spot at the national tournament. –T.O. Nittany Lions finish second at Big Ten tourney RETHERFORD [and] he's good at cross-facing people [and locking up] the cross-face cradle. So you'll be in on his leg and he's trying to cross-face cradle you from all these weird positions." It's been his go-to move, and the bonus-point producer that helped secure him a spot in the lineup for the postsea- son. When the season began, as he contin- ued to recover from the injury that cut short his sophomore campaign, he was third on the depth chart behind Anthony Cassar and returning starter Matt Mc- Cutcheon. In the preseason, Cassar had beaten out McCutcheon, who was dealing with an injury of his own, and went on to win 11 of his first 12 matches. But when he lost bout No. 13 – in the semifinal round of the Southern Scuffle in early January – Rasheed was concurrently hitting his stride. Rasheed had previously suffered a minor setback in November, but by early January he was healthy enough to resume action. At the Scuffle, he pinned three of his

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