Five first-round pins fuel Penn State to early lead in NCAA team race

PITTSBURGH – The 2019 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships kicked off on Thursday morning at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pa., and the action has already been exciting.

Penn State, which has won seven of the last eight NCAA team titles, leads the team race early with 21 points. Ohio State sits in second with 15.5 points, followed by third-place Oklahoma State with 14.5 points. Rounding out the top five is Iowa in fourth with 14 points and Minnesota in fifth with 13.5 points.

Penn State and Iowa each brought nine qualifiers and advanced all nine to the second round of the championship brackets. The Nittany Lions won seven of its nine bouts with bonus points, including five pins and two major decisions.

Leading the blue and white were two-time NCAA champions Jason Nolf at 157 pounds, Vincenzo Joseph at 165 pounds and Bo Nickal at 197 pounds, who all registered first period falls. Nolf and Nickal hold the Nos. 1 seeds at their weights, while Joseph is No. 2 at 165.

The other two PSU falls came from No.3 Nick Lee at 141 pounds and No. 2 Anthony Cassar at 285 pounds.

2017 NCAA champion and No. 1 Mark Hall and 2018 All-American and No. 2 Shakur Rasheed won their matches by major decision at 174 pounds and 184 pounds, respectively.

Hall isn’t the only NCAA champ in the field at 174 pounds. Defending champion Zahid Valencia of Arizona State entered the tournament as the No. 3 seed. In his first bout, Valencia produced an 11-2 major decision over Dean Sherry from Rider to move onto the next round.

Leading Iowa on Thursday morning was 2018 NCAA champion and third-seeded Spencer Lee, who won his first bout at 125 pounds with an 18-0 technical fall over Bryce West of Northern Illinois.

No. 7 Austin DeSanto earned pin points for the Hawkeyes with a disqualification win in the first round at 133 pounds.

Others who impressed for Iowa early in the tournament included top-ranked Alex Marinelli at 165 pounds and No. 28 Sam Stoll at 285 pounds.

After a disappointing finish at the Big Ten Championships earlier this month, 2018 All-American Sam Stoll received the No. 28 seed and was pitted against No. 5 Mason Parris, a freshman for Michigan, in the first round.

It was a strangely officiated bout with multiple stalling calls against Parris early in the bout. Each wrestler notched one takedown during the bout, with Parris’ coming in the first period and Stoll’s coming in the second period. At the end of regulation, Stoll had his hand raised in an 8-5 victory.

At No. 5, Parris was the highest-seeded wrestler to lose in the first round.

Marinelli, who claimed the Big Ten title two weeks ago, faced off against two-time All-American for Oklahoma State Joe Smith, who was the 33-seed coming into Pittsburgh. Smith already grabbed a win in the pigtail match and used his momentum to challenge Marinelli, taking a 4-2 lead after the first period with two takedowns.

The Hawkeye rode out the Cowboy for the entire second period and scored a takedown in the third period for an eventual 7-4 win to advance.

“That’s a guy I wanted to wrestle. That opponent demands my best,” Marinelli said. “I felt I wanted a turn, but my corner told me to stay smart, that I didn’t need a turn. I was able to ride him and then I was able to get to my attacks.”

In addition to Smith, the Cowboys lost one other wrestler on the front side as seventh-ranked Kaden Gfeller was upset in the first round at 149 pounds as No. 26 Ryan Blees from Virginia Tech recorded a takedown and nearfall points in sudden victory for a 5-1 win.

Another No. 7 went down, when 26th-seeded Dakota Geer from Oklahoma State knocked off No. 7 Nick Reenan of North Carolina State with a dominant 6-0 shutout at 184 pounds.

Two top-10 wrestlers for Cornell fell short in the first session as No. 9 Chas Tucker dropped a 7-2 decision to No. 24 DJ Fehlman of Lock Haven at 133 pounds, and Ben Honis, also ranked No. 9, fell to Lehigh’s Jake Jakobsen at 197 pounds, 8-5.

Tucker owns a sudden-victory win over Fehlman from earlier this season, while Honis beat Jakobsen twice this season, including a 5-1 decision in the EIWA Championships.

In addition to the Nos. 1 seeds already mentioned, six others advanced to the second round on Thursday.

At 125 pounds, Sebastian Rivera of Northwestern piled on eight takedowns en route to a 21-6 second-period technical fall over No. 33 Trey Chalifoux from Army.

“I went out there and scored a lot of points,” Rivera said. “It felt good to get the first one off. It’s always the toughest one, and now I just have to keep on rolling. I wanted the pin, but I have to start worrying about winning the matches instead of thinking about bonus points.”

Oklahoma State’s Daton Fix, the only freshman to earn a No. 1 seed this year, looked sharp in his first career NCAA Championships match, defeating Binghamton’s Zack Trampe with a 21-7 major decision.

Defending NCAA champion at 141 pounds, Yianni Diakomihalis of Cornell, produced a 10-5 decision over Pete Lipari of Rutgers.

At 149 pounds, three-time All-American for Rutgers Anthony Ashnault began his final NCAA tournament with a solid 10-2 major decision against Malik Amine from Michigan. Ashnault seeks to become the first four-time All-American in Rutgers’ history.

Additionally, the Scarlet Knights have never had a national champion in wrestling. Ashnault and 133-pound teammate Nick Suriano are serious threats to win titles this weekend.

2016 NCAA champion and senior Myles Martin of Ohio State collected a second-period fall over Bob Coleman of Oregon State in 3:22 to start his weekend at 184 pounds.

Derek White of Oklahoma worked his way to a 10-2 major decision against West Virginia’s Brandon Ngati at heavyweight.

The second round of championship competition and first-round of wrestlebacks begin Thursday at 7 p.m. ET. Fans can watch the action live on ESPNU and online on ESPN3. Brackets can be found on Trackwrestling and FloWrestling.