Nittany Lions Shred the Armed Rutgers Scarlet Knights in REC Hall

A sold out crowd filed into REC Hall this Friday the 13th to view the #2 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions take on the traveling #10 ranked Scarlet Knights of Rutgers. Starting off the dual, a former Bergan Catholic, New Jersey fella, Nick Suriano. The #3 125 pound competitor in the country handled Brandon Patzell, an ex-Phillipsburg Liner out of the same state, soundly in the first period taking advantage of Paetzell slipping out of position to rack up 2 points for himself heading into the second. Suriano then switched gears in the second to just take full control of the match hawking down his takedowns and sticking to the classic Jersey style wrestling with front head tricep snap attacks, rather than going into underhook ties. Suriano dominated the match however just fell short of the Tech-Fall victory by 1 point, to put the Penn State up 4 points after his Major Decision Win.

At the 133 pound weight class, Scott Delvecchio of Rutgers started out slow against Carpenter, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro High School native. Scott started out slow but ended racking up points in the third period to solidify the victory and deflate the crowd, along with giving Rutgers on the board.

TThe marquee matchup of the night met at the 141 weight class as 4x NJ HS State Champ and #6 ranked wrestler in the NCAA, Anthony Ashnault against a 4x PA HS State Champ and #12 ranked Jimmy Guilbon squared off in front of the sold out fans. Ashnault opened up the match with a nice takedown and Guilbon answered in the second period riding Ashnault out for the duration leading into the 3rd period. AS a side note, during this bout the BIG10 commentators Gibbons and his other companion showed zero knowledge of Prep/Public School NJ Wrestling, failing to realize that Blair does not wrestle in the New Jersey State Tournament. Ashnault continued to hold strong for the remainder of the bout to earn a 4-1 decision win over the Penn State senior Guilbon.

At 149 pounds, the 2016 NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler of the Year and BIG 10 Wrestler of the Year, #1 Zain Retherford flipped the #14 ranked Rutgers representative Theobold and stuck him for 6 more points in Penn States favor! Still in the same category of dominance at 165 lbs, Jason Nolf squared of against #16 Van Brill of Brick,NJ. After a circus 1st period, Nolf Scored a crazy 15 points, earning some funky sets of near falls, which eventually led to an easy Techincal Fall victory for the stud Sophomore. 

"We are healthy and we are doing the right things training wise. We need to get better everyday."
"Our guys embrace the BIG10 Grind" -Rutgers Head Coach Scott Goodale

Following intermission, Vincenzo Joseph who is #4 ranked at the 165 pound weight class took on another Jersey native Willie Scott for Rutgers and gets an easy tech-fall win with short time left in the second period. Next, Veterans clashed at the 174 bout, as #14 ranked Geno Morelli faced off against Bakuckas who has been in the Scarlet Knight lineup for a couple years. Heading into the second period, with Bakuckus trailing by 2 he gets a reversal and the challenge video could not see the riding time which was not started until 2-3 seconds after Bakuckas scored ontop, even those viewers watching the BTN on their televisions could view the clock and notice the time difference!?!? After a video malfunction Bakuckas stayed hot rolling Morelli over for a 2 count tilt which was not called!?! Donny Pritzlaff heated up sprinted to the scorers table to challenge the obvious back points. However, NO CALL?! Rutgers gets robbed and the ref does not reward Bakuckas the 2-point near fall, as a result comes up short of the upset victory.

The 184 pound weight class featured #2 Bo Nickal against #14 Nick Gravina. The two came out aggressive and looking to launch eachother. Nickal sealed a takedown at the last seconds of the 1st period. At the start of the second period with Gravina ontop,slips out of a merkle hold and Nickal performs a Peterson Roll type reversal to roll Gravina on his back and soon for the FALL to ignite the arena!!

At the 197 class, Correnti from Rutgers gave 11th ranked veteran Matt McCutcheon, a Kiski Kid, a run for his money but just ran out of gas to put pressure to earn an upset win. To close out the dual, undefeated and 5th ranked Penn State Heavyweight Nick Nevills from Clovis, CA made Rutgers freshmen Ralphie Normandia look like he didnt even belong to wear a D1 wrestling singlet. Nevills gets an easy Tech-Fall victory on the last bout of the evening. 

CLIFF KEEN OUTSTANDING WRESTLER was rewarded to Bo Nickal of Penn State at 184lbs. 

The Nittany Lions are now 7-0 on the year, 3-0 in the Big Ten, and have won 24 straight duals dating back to the end of the 2014-15 campaign. Rutgers is now 7-2, 2-1 Big Ten. The crowd of 6,605 is the 32nd straight sell-out in Rec Hall for Penn State wrestling. The team has wrestled in front of 35 of 37 sellout crowds, including three in the near-16,000 seat Bryce Jordan Center.Penn State travels to Iowa City on Friday, Jan. 20, for a Big Ten road match-up with the Iowa Hawkeyes. The dual, in Carver-Hawkeye Arena, begins at 9 p.m. Eastern / 8 p.m. Central.

Rutgers is back at the Rutgers Athletic Center next Friday night against Oregon State for a 7 p.m. dual on BTN Plus. The Scarlet Knights close the weekend on Sunday, Jan. 22 with a noon matchup with Purdue, also on BTN Plus.

#2 Penn State 37, #21 Rutgers 6
January 13, 2017 -- Rec Hall -- University Park, Pa.
125: #3 Nick Suriano PSU maj. dec. Brandon Paetzell RU, 16-2 / 4-0
133: Scott DelVecchio RU dec. George Carpenter PSU, 11-4 / 4-3
141: #6 Anthony Ashnault RU dec. #12 Jimmy Gulibon PSU, 4-1 / 4-6
149: #1 Zain Retherford PSU pinned #14 Ken Theobold RU, WBF (5:33) / 10-6
157: #1 Jason Nolf PSU tech fall #16 John Van Brill RU, 22-4 (TF; 4:09) / 15-6
165: #4 Vincenzo Joseph PSU tech fall Willie Scott RU, 19-3 (TF; 4:55) / 20-6
174: #14 Geno Morelli PSU dec. Phillip Bakuckas RU, 5-3 / 23-6
184: #2 Bo Nickal PSU pinned #14 Nicholas Gravina RU, WBF (4:22) / 29-6
197: #11 Matt McCutcheon PSU dec. Matthew Correnti RU, 4-3 / 32-6
285: #5 Nick Nevills PSU tech fall Randy Normandia RU, 24-9 (TF; 6:57) / 37-6
Attendance: 6,605 (32nd straight Rec Hall sell out)
Records: Penn State 7-0, 3-0 B1G; Rutgers 7-2, 2-1 B1G
Up Next for Penn State: at #3 Iowa, Friday, Jan. 20, 9 p.m. Eastern (BTN live)














THAT'S ALL FOLKS!!!!
BEST ALWAYS-RON JOHN RINALDI