UPDATED: Penn State beats Ohio State, 32-12, before record crowd in Columbus

Photo of Zane Retherford of Penn State battling Micah Jordan of Ohio State courtesy of GoPSUSports.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Not even the combination of a record crowd, four wrestlers ranked No. 1 at their respective weights from two of the top four teams in country, who just happened to win the last six NCAA wrestling championships, could inspire much satisfaction from either coach Friday night at Value City Arena.
No. 2 Penn State won seven of 10 bouts, silencing a Buckeye wrestling record crowd of 15,338 for long stretches, in a dominating 32-12 rout of No. 4 Ohio State.
Considering the atmosphere and the competition, many would call this the Nittany Lions’ most dominating performance of the year. Coach Cael Sanderson wouldn’t agree with that assessment.
“It’s hard to make a claim like that when you lose your last two matches, you know,” he said with a scowl. “I think overall our guys wrestled well.”
Earlier in the week, Sanderson had contended that while the Ohio State dual was a big match, the Nittany Lions consider every match they wrestle a big match. Bottom line, they want to win every time they compete.
However, this match featured four of the top-ranked wrestlers at their respective weights and it could have been five had Ohio State’s top-ranked 174-pounder, Bo Jordan, not been sidelined with an ankle injury. And, when you consider that for the past six years the winner of this dual meet went on to win the NCAA championship, there was great anticipation.
Penn State removed any drama by emerging from a 5-5 tie after two bouts with a string of six consecutive wins to open an insurmountable 32-5 lead.
“I thought five wins would win the dual meet and we felt good about 33, we felt good about 97 and we felt good about heavyweight. And we felt good about 74,” Ohio State coach Tom Ryan said.
“The match for us tonight was 41 and that was probably 51-49 if you look at who’s gonna win. One’s a fifth-year senior and one’s a freshman and it was a pretty close bout. We thought we’d win that. I expected a much closer score; I expected to win.”
The teams swapped technical falls right out of the gate. Penn State’s second-ranked 125-pounder Nick Suriano rolled up nine points in the third period, along with a riding time point, to finish off a 19-4 technical fall over No. 18 Jose Rodriguez.
At 133, No. 1 Nathan Tomasello used nine takedowns to roll up a 22-7 technical over George Carpenter.
The Nittany Lions then swept the next three bouts to open a 19-5 lead at the intermission.
No. 11 Jimmy Gulibon started the sweep by winning one of the night’s tossup bouts. With his match with No. 15 Luke Pletcher tied, 3-3, at the end of the second period, he used an escape and 1:17 in riding time for a 5-3 win.
“I thought Gulibon showed some toughness. He got taken down but he kept firing away. He hit a nice takedown. Pletcher’s very hard to score on. He’s unique in what he does and has a really good feel for the sport. That was a good win for Jimmy,” Sanderson said.
Top-ranked 149-pounder Zain Retherford ceded the initial takedown to No. 5 Micah Jordan and led just 3-2 at the end of a period. Retherford stretched the lead to 10-2 after two and then poured it on with nine points in the third, and a riding time point, for a 20-5 technical fall.
“Even if he doesn’t take me down right away I know he’s coming at me. He’s a competitor and all of these college guys at this level are coming at you, so if you get taken down in that situation, I don’t really think about it as a negative,” Retherford said. “You can either look at it as, ‘I have to come back,’ or you can put your head down. Putting your head down doesn’t do you any good. You have to make the most of that.”
At 157, No. 1 Jason Nolf needed just 1:36 to turn Buckeye backup Anthony DeCarlo and pin him in 1:36. It was Nolf’s 10th pin of the season. It was another example of the sophomore’s creativity and, he said, what results from the scrambles the Nittany Lions engage in when they practice.
“It was kind of like a cradle, step over leg into a cement job. I don’t know,” he said.
“It’s just play wrestling. I was warming up with coach Cody and I was kind of choking him out a little bit, so when I got into that position, I had kind of a chokehold on that guy as well. I think he was about to pass out, maybe.”
The onslaught continued after the break, as Penn State tacked on three more wins.
Fourth-ranked Vincenzo Joseph thoroughly dominated Cody Burcher in an 11-1 major decision at 165.
With Jordan out of the Buckeyes’ lineup, Mark Hall dominated backup Justin Kresevic. Hall scored six takedowns before hooking up a cement mixer on Kresevic and pinning him in 5:20.
Sanderson admitted he was disappointed his talented freshman didn’t get to see how me measured up with a two-time All-American.
“We were looking forward to that match. That was a good opportunity against the No. 1 guy in the country, but it is what it is. Later, I guess,” he said.
That set up the Nittany Lions’ last win and the most anticipated match of the night, at 184. Penn State’s second-ranked Bo Nickal was paired with No. 10 Myles Martin in a rematch of the 2016 NCAA 174-pound final that Martin won, 11-9.
That match tilted Martin’s way in the second period when Nickal tried to toss him to his back but Martin rolled Nickal through to his back for a six-point move that Nickal couldn’t recover from.
This time, Nickal emerged from almost every flurry with a takedown, one in each period. He added a reversal for an 8-2 decision.
Nickal admitted that it was satisfying that he beat Martin in their next encounter after the finals loss.
“Yeah, I guess in a way, but I don’t really think about it. I just really take every match the same, no matter who the opponent is. I was going out there to wrestle the same as I always do. There was nothing else. I don’t need any external motivation,” he said.
Sanderson said the emphasis the coaches have had for Nickal is to keep moving forward, put that loss behind him and focus on winning.
“You want to win every match you wrestle. Yeah, that was the next match you wrestle and every time you lose a big match it’s on your mind, I’m sure, but his challenge was to get past that and move on and I think he has. There’s a new national champ gonna be crowned this year not too long from now and that’s where his focus has to be and I think that’s where it is.”
Nickal said that while it may have looked like he learned not to push moves that would have resulted with Martin on his back, as he did in the final, that wasn’t the case.
“I was going for the big move. I was trying to put him on his back. Every time I felt like I was locked up in a position, he didn’t really want to wrestle through it. He kind of like bailed,” he said.
“With that, it’s hard for me to get that when he’s bailing out of those positions and he’s not really trying to wrestle through it. If he tries to wrestle through it, then he’s going to go to his back.”
Ohio State salvaged some success with wins at 197 and heavyweight.
No. 4 Kollin Moore turned away a game ninth-ranked Matt McCutcheon, using an escape and takedown in the third to emerge with a 9-6 win. And, at 285, defending NCAA champion and Olympic gold medalist Kyle Snyder used nine takedowns to roll to a 20-9 major decision over No. 3 Nick Nevills.
“I wrestle for myself pretty much. I mean I’m happy that people come and watch me compete. And I hope that they had fun but I wrestle and I compete hard because I love wrestling and I love to score points,” Snyder said. “I want everyone in Buckeye Nation to know how hard I work and kind of paint them an image of the self-regimen I put myself through and what coaches put me through so I can score a lot of points.”
Snyder, who just last weekend won the Yarygin Grand Prix in Russia, just the 11th American do so, said it wasn’t hard to transition from freestyle to collegiate folkstyle.
“I did that last year as well, I’ve gotten pretty used to it and my style from folkstyle to freestyle is pretty similar. He was rolling around a little bit and in freestyle it’s like two points, two points, two points and stuff like that. Overall, It’s not too difficult if I don’t have to choose bottom.”
Snyder, who had been scheduled to wrestle in the Freestyle World Cup next weekend in Kermanshah, Iran, reacted to the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s decision to deny visas to the U.S. team.
“I heard about it this morning. A couple hours later I talked to USA Wrestling and they told me just to remain hopeful. The chances of us are going are slim but they said this can change any day. The Iran Wrestling Federation is still working with the Iranian government to get us our visas. They want us over there and definitely it’s nothing against Iran. Everybody on the mat in my time and my career from Iran have been nice individuals. I know they want us there to compete, just have to see what happens.”
As for Friday night, Sanderson said his team still has improvements to make.
“If you come in here and win seven out of 10 matches, that’s pretty good but we need to keep getting better,” he said. “There are some areas where we’re off on our technique a little bit that we can improve upon, some of our younger guys. We definitely have room to improve and that’ll never change.”
No. 2 Penn State 32

No. 4 Ohio State 12

(Friday at Columbus, Ohio)

125: No. 2 Nick Suriano, PSU, won by tech. fall over No. 18 Josh Rodriguez, 19-4 (7:00).
133: No. 1 Nathan Tomasello, OSU, won by tech. fall over George Carpenter, 22-7 (6:01).
141: No. 11 Jimmy Gulibon, PSU, dec. NO. 15 Luke Pletcher, 5-3.
149: No. 1 Zain Retherford, PSU, won by tech. fall over No. 5 Micah Jordan, 20-5 (7:00).
157: No. 1 Jason Nolf, PSU, pinned Anthony DeCarlo, 1:36.
165: No. 4 Vincenzo Joseph, PSU, maj. dec. Cody Burcher, 11-1.
174: No. 7 Mark Hall, PSU, pinned Justin Kresevic, 5:20.
184: No. 2 Bo Nickal, PSU, dec. No. 10 Myles Martin, 8-2.
197: No. 4 Kollin Moore, OSU, dec. No. 9 Matt McCutcheon, 9-6.
285: No. 1 Kyle Snyder, OSU, maj. dec. Nick Nevills, 20-9.
Referee: J.R. Johnson.
Attendance: 15,338.
Takedowns: Penn State 26; Ohio State 24.
Records: Penn State 11-0, 7-0; Ohio State 9-2, 4-2.
Next match: Illinois at Penn State, 7 p.m. Friday; Ohio State at Nebraska, 7 p.m. Friday.