Jan. 26, 2015
By Matt Allibone, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - It was an opportunity that Morgan McIntosh had been waiting for all week.
The Penn State 197-pounder entered Sunday's dual against No. 2 Minnesota facing one of the biggest challenges of his career, a matchup with the top-ranked wrestler at his weight, Scott Schiller.
He may not have been favored to win, but none of that mattered once the bout began.
In a bout featuring two All-Americans, McIntosh produced perhaps his biggest win yet, taking Schiller down three times in a 7-4 victory that improved the sixth-ranked wrestler to 9-1 in dual meets and highlighted the Nittany Lions close 17-16 loss.
"I think getting my shots, I was in on a lot of shots, and I just need to keep figuring out a way to finish those," McIntosh said. "Schiller's a big, strong guy, he's got strong hips but there's things I could have done a lot differently to finish those shots."
McIntosh wasted little time establishing the tempo of the match, aggressively shooting at Schiller throughout the first period to jump out to a 4-2 lead before adding another takedown in the third to secure the victory. Still, his attitude after the match said a lot about the junior's character.
Although he had just achieved a signature win, one that every other wrestler in his weight class would have been proud of, McIntosh instead chose to focus on the aspects he stills wants to improve as well as his team.
"If I could have [finished more takedowns], maybe I could have scored more points and gotten the bonus points for the team," McIntosh said. "Just got to learn from it and do things differently next time."
That team-first mindset is one of the reasons that McIntosh is one of the team's two captains despite being a junior. Regardless of the outcome of the team match, it was a terrific moment for the Santa Ana, California, native, seeing as Schiller finished third at the NCAA Tournament last season and had yet to lose a dual meet all season.
While McIntosh didn't gloat about his victory, his fellow captain senior Matt Brown heaped plenty of praise on him.
"I thought it was pretty impressive how many times he was able to get in on a leg," Brown said. "He's going to finish more of those in the future but he controlled the whole match, I was very impressed. I looked and saw the kid he was wrestling was ranked [No. 1] I thought, `well maybe Morgan should be first, look how good he's wrestling.'
"I think it just proves to him he is the best in the country. I mean, I wrestle with him and I can't stop what he does. So I'm like, `what the heck, how is anyone else going to beat him.'"
Two matches earlier, Brown has an impressive win himself in another highly anticipated bout at the 174-pound weight, beating third ranked Logan Storley 4-1.
In the eighth career meeting between the two multi-time All-Americans, both grapplers were active from the start. However, it was Brown who broke the 0-0 tie in the second period with a quick escape and takedown that proved to be the difference.
The win gives Brown, who dropped a 3-1 overtime decision to Storley in last year's NCAA Tournament, further confidence that he can beat the Gopher again if they meat in March. He is now 5-3 all-time against the Minnesota 174-pounder.
"You want like a grade, like probably a B maybe," Brown said. "Some positive things, I was able to scramble, I've been working with coach [Casey] Cunningham on that. Didn't have a productive third period so that's something I can work on and score more points."
In the final bout of the day, Penn State 125-pounder Jordan Conaway needed to pin Ethan Lizak to give the Lions a victory and just missed out on the fall, settling instead for a 13-3 major that left the Lions one point away from a tie.
While it was a tough way to lose, it proved Penn State is only a move or two away from being able to beat the second-ranked team in the country in a dual setting.
Minnesota entered the afternoon with eight ranked wrestlers, including five ranked in the top five and three at No. 1, yet Penn State won five of the match's 10 bouts and four of the five after halftime. Though disappointed, the Blue and White remain confident they can compete with anyone when the postseason comes around.
"Again, it's just those close matches, we've got to win those," head coach Cael Sanderson said. "We had a chance to win a couple of those obviously and we gave up two majors, which ended up being the difference. They've got some pretty good guys too."