Wrestling Wreport: Penn State destroys OSU

Ed Ruth enjoys stomping on guys bigger than him

What looked like a close match on paper, although I was predicting a comfortable 11 point win, turned out to be complete domination by the men in Blue @ White. Penn State amassed 3 pins and 3 majors while winning the takedown battle 23-4. One of the more anticipated bouts of the night did not happen. At 174, No. 13 Nick Heflin of OSU and No.11 Ed Ruth never occurred because Heflin was unable to pass a skin check before the match so Ohio State was forced to forfeit and Ruth moved up a weight to wrestle for an injured Quentin Wright at 184. The other matchup of ranked wrestlers occurred at 157 where David Taylor ranked 3^rd took on No. 13 Curt Sponseller of OSU.

The Good

Taylor, who grew up in Ohio, dominated Sponseller by a 14-1 score. Taylor controlled the match from beginning to end beating Sponseller in every aspect of the game. If that was a "test" Taylor got an A+. The big win for Penn State though came at 133 where Bryan Pearsall (unranked) beat #10 Ian Paddock of OSU, 9-4. Paddock, who was a Big Ten Wrestler of the week earlier this season, jumped out to a 4-3 lead before Pearsall threw Paddock to his back for a five point move in the third period and held on to take the 9-4 upset win. With the crowd fired up from Pearsall's heroics Andrew Alton and Frank Molinaro fed off the energy and followed that match with consecutive pins. It took Frank 5:56 to get his pin Alton, who has 10 pins among his 13 victories, had his opponent on his back before his entry music stopped. Thanks to the magic of the intertubes here's video evidence of Alton's awesomeness.



A very emphatic hat tip to wrestling super fan tacchinisean
 
Frank Martellotti started things off with a 9-1 major of Bo Touris and Cameron Wade finished the dual with an exclamation point pinning Ohio State's Zach Stolarksy.

The Bad

When you win every match except one there really isn't anything bad to say, unless you are Sophomore 197 pounder Justin Ortega which brings us to…

The Ugly

I never like to rail on young kids but Ortega is just hard to watch. He never has bought into Sanderson's offense first mentality like so many other wrestlers have. Ortega didn't take a serious shot the entire match losing 8-2. Ortega never gives himself a chance, I realize he may not have the skill set to beat good opponents but at the very least go down swinging.

Overall

This team is really firing on all cylinders right now and with the lone exception of Ortega, everyone is getting better and better. Molinaro has his conditioning back and Brad Pataky is registered to wrestle in the Southern Scuffle next week. If Brad can get back to form quickly and if Quentin Wright can recover sometime around February, this team could challenge for the Big Ten championship and more.

Next Up

Penn State travels to Greensboro, N.C., Dec. 29-30 to participate in the Southern Scuffle. PSU will be one of 30 teams to wrestle including 8 of the top 25. 

Bout by bout scoring

Wt.	Bout Score	Team score
125	#17 Frank Martellotti PSU maj. dec. Bo Touris OSU, 9-1	4-0
133	Bryan Pearsall PSU dec. #10 Ian Paddock OSU, 9-4	7-0
141	#10 Andrew Alton PSU pinned Randy Languis OSU, WBF (0:31)	13-0
149	#6 Frank Molinaro PSU pinned Sean Nemec OSU, WBF (5:56)	19-0
157	#3 David Taylor PSU maj. dec. #13 Colt Sponseller OSU, 14-1	23-0
165	Nick Fischer PSU dec. Jared Kusar OSU, 5-1	26-0
174	Jake Kemerer PSU win by forfeit	32-0
184	#11 Ed Ruth PSU maj. dec. Peter Capone OSU, 18-6	36-0
197	C.J. Magrum OSU dec. Justin Ortega PSU, 8-2	36-3
285	#6 Cameron Wade PSU pinned Zach Stolarsky OSU, WBF (2:06)	42-3

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