March 11, 2009
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - The NCAA Division I Wrestling Committee has announced its 52 At-Large `wild card' selections to the NCAA Wrestling Championships. In the first year of awarding wild card spots out of a national pool, the Committee has awarded Penn State freshman 141-pounder Frank Molinaro (Barnegat, N.J.) an at-large bid. Head coach Troy Sunderland will take six wrestlers to nationals this year.
Molinaro joins qualifiers Brad Pataky (Clearfield, Pa.), Jake Strayer (South Fork, Pa.), Bubba Jenkins (Virginia Beach, Va.), Dan Vallimont (Lake Hopatcong, N.J.) and Quentin Wright (Wingate, Pa.), who all earned automatic bids in last weekend's Big Ten Championships.
Molinaro made a strong case for a `wild card' heading into the process. His performance during the regular season was so strong that he earned the Big Ten one of its seven automatic bids at 141. With five wild-cards doled out at this weight, Molinaro was one of only two 141-pounders nationwide who earned his conference an automatic qualifier but did not earn a spot in the qualifying tournament. The New Jersey native heads to St. Louis with a 19-16 overall record, four pins and five majors. He has beaten national qualifiers Champion Tyler Nauman of Pittsburgh, EWL Champion (a 6-5 decision), and Virginia's Nick Nelson (a 12-2 major).
The Nittany Lions are coming off a better-than-expected showing in the Big Ten Championships. The team took seventh place in the team race with half its starting line-up comprised of freshmen. The seventh-place showing mirrored last year's finish and was just 8.5 points out of fourth place. Eight of Penn State's wrestlers either wrestled to or above their respective seeds while five finished better than the pre-tournament seeding dictated.
Pataky qualified at 125, taking fourth at 125 as the No. 4 seed. He heads to St. Louis with a 28-9 overall record. Strayer was the No. 6 seed at 133 and placed sixth. He carries a 16-8 record to St. Louis. Jenkins was the second seed at 149 and lost in the Big Ten title bout. He will carry a 24-1 record to nationals. Vallimont was tabbed as the No. 6 seed at 165 but came on strong, going 4-1 to take third place. He is 21-10 overall. Wright, a true freshman, was the third seed at Big Tens and went 3-1 to advance to the Big Ten title bout in his first year of collegiate wrestling. He finished second at the conference tournament and is 29-10 overall.
The 2009 NCAA Wrestling Championships will take place on Thursday through Saturday, March 19-21, at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Mo. Action begins on Thursday with sessions at (ALL TIMES ARE CENTRAL) 11 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Friday begins with a 10 a.m. session and ends with a 6 p.m. session. Saturday, the final day of the tournament, begins at 9:30 a.m. and concludes with the Finals at 5:30 p.m.
The ESPN family of networks, vastly increasing its live coverage of the event last year, has upped its commitment to the tournament even more for 2009. For the first time, the event will presented in high definition and the semifinals will be simulcast on both ESPN2 HD and ESNU HD. In all, 11 hours of live coverage will be presented on ESPNU, ESPN and ESPN2 (in addition to each channel's HD counterpart) on Friday and Saturday. All of Thursday's action will be carried live on ESPN360.com, the networks' broadband sports television network.