March 18, 2015
By Matt Allibone, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.- Cael Sanderson can't help but be a believer.
The head coach of the Penn State wrestling team knows his team is in much different position heading into the 2015 NCAA Championships than its been in the past few seasons. After a fifth place finish in the Big Ten Tournament, the four-time defending champion Nittany Lions will be heading into the biggest weekend of the year not as the favorite, but as one of the underdogs.
And that's perfectly fine for Sanderson and his squad. While expectations may not be the same for the Nittany Lions across the country, the Nittany Lions desire to win has not been diminished in the slightest.
"I don't think my perspective has necessarily changed," Sanderson said. "It's just a matter of getting the kids to believe. I can see us winning, it's just a matter of doing it, and not getting frustrated when things are not going our way because you've got to make things go your way.
"I'm optimistic. I believe in the guys that we have going that they can get the job done. Would it be a small miracle? Maybe, but I do believe in miracles."
Having qualified seven out of 10 wrestlers for the tournament, the Lions will certainly have plenty of work to do when the tournament kicks off on Thursday in St. Louis. Still, with all seven wrestlers seeded in the top 16, Penn State will definitely have the chance to make some noise.
At the very least, each of Penn State's wrestlers will have a fighting chance to reach the top-eight and earn All-American status. That being said, the Nittany Lions do take pride in the team score and will take the mat looking to rack up bonus point to make up for their lack of competitors.
"I'm excited. I don't want to talk big but I think our guys have a chance to score a lot of points," Sanderson said. "Is it going to be easy no, but can they do it, yeah."
It certainly won't be easy, but then again, the Lions aren't looking for anything to be handed to them. With the tournament kicking off in two days, here's a look at every Penn State qualifier.
125 Pounds: Junior Jordan Conaway (23-6, 11th Seed, Third at B1G Tournament) Two years ago, Jordan Conaway made a splash in his first NCAA Championships appearance, coming up one win shy of becoming an All-American at 133 pounds.
Now competing at 125 after missing out on a starting spot last year, the Abbottstown, Pennsylvania, native is determined to take that next step. Having claimed third place in a brutally tough field at the Big Ten Tournament, Conaway seems to be peaking at the right time.
"I'm just focused on this year, I've been to this tournament before so I'm looking to do better obviously," Conaway said. "We've wrestled our best as this tournament the past few years, I don't see why this would be any different, and the same for me."
Sanderson has touted the redshirt junior as someone he is expecting to breakout over the weekend. With a 10-6 record this year against the NCAA field (including two wins and a medical forfeit in the B1G Tournament) Conaway has proven he can beat top opponents.
It's something that he'll have to prove early on as well. If the 125-pounder gets past the first round, he'll likely get a second round match against Iowa's Thomas Gilman, a grappler he's lost to by one point twice this season.
Conway, who admitted he hasn't looked at the bracket, isn't shying away from another rematch. One of the grittiest guys on the team, he knows he has to beat the best to be the best.
"I honestly don't look at the bracket, I just go out and wrestle," Conaway said. "We've had some close matches and I just have to keep battling and this will be the time to win it."
133: Sophomore Jimmy Gulibon (22-7, Seventh Seed, Sixth at B1G Tournament) Perhaps no Penn State wrestler has improved more dramatically from last season to this season than Jimmy Gulibon.
A year after the highly touted recruit finished an up-and-down freshman year by going 1-2 in his first NCAA Tournament appearance, the 133-pounder has looked like a legit contender for much of this season, finishing the dual meet season schedule with a 13-2 record.
While he finished sixth at the conference tournament despite winning his first two meets, Gulibon is still 12-7 this year against the 133-field and 9-6 against ranked opponents. He enters the tournament with an excellent chance to claim his first All-American nod.
One potential match to look forward to is Gulibon's second round bout, which will be against Lehigh's Mason Beckman if both wrestlers advance. In the two team's season opening match, Gulibon beat Beckman, who was ranked second at the time, 8-3.
"I can't be complacent and stay back and try to hold a lead. I have to keep wrestling," Gulibon said. "I was a little upset with my performance last year. This year, I'd like to get out there and keep attacking."
149: Sophomore Zack Beitz (18-9,12th Seed, Fifth at B1G Tournament) One of two Nittany Lions making their NCAA Tournament debuts this weekend, Beitz may be the least heralded wrestler Penn State is sending. That being said, the redshirt sophomore is another guy that appears to be hitting his stride the last month.
A scrapper that has always had a knack for giving top opponents all they can handle, Beitz has recently shown the ability to finish off ranked guys. An impressive pin over fourth ranked Josh Kindig of Oklahoma State as well as a fifth place finish at the conference tournament has raised his profile.
Now, the Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, native is looking to show he belongs at the national level. While he originally saw time in Penn State's lineup last year as an injury replacement for Andrew Alton, Beitz has proved he can be a starter, and an impressive performance this weekend would enhance his reputation even more.
To do it, the 12th-seeded Beitz will have to make sure he doesn't look his past his first round opponent, Shawn Greevy of Chattanooga. A win there could set up a matchup with Cornell's Chris Villalonga, the fifth seed and one of the top contenders in the weight class.
"Being at the national tournament is something you train for and look forward to all year long," Beitz said. "This is why we wrestle. This is the tournament that means so much to all of us. The biggest thing is to go out there with great focus and know what your goals are."
174: Senior Matt Brown (24-3, Second Seed, Second at B1G Tournament) It's hard to imagine any competitor being more determined than Matt Brown is right now.
The Penn State captain has accomplished nearly everything a wrestler can in his four-year career. He's got over 100 career victories, won an individual conference title, been to the national finals and claimed All-American honors twice.
All that remains now is that elusive national championship. Brown enters his final NCAA Championships as the No. 2 seed at his weight, yet he knows a trip to the finals won't come easy.
As usual, the 174-bracket is brutally tough, with nobody in the top nine having lost more than six times this season. Having finished fifth last year after coming up just one win short of a title in 2013, Brown knows better than anyone that the field is wide open.
"It's another competitive bracket, I think they'll be a lot of good matchups,' Brown said. "I think I'm just going into this weekend knowing the NCAA tournament is a lot of fun. I know it's exciting but it's nothing that I should be intimidated of or afraid of."
Brown begins the weekend with a 10-3 season record against tournament qualifiers, with two of those loses coming against the top seed, undefeated Robert Kokesh of Nebraska.
Having lost to him in the finals of the Big Ten tournament, Brown would love a third shot at the Cornhusker. At the same time, he has a long road to get there and the Nittany Lion All-American wants to savor every moment on the mat he has left.
"I think I'll reflect when it's over, knowing my days in a Penn State singlet are numbered," Brown said. "I'm excited though, it's fun. It's what we train for. It's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, but it's what I want to do now."
184: Freshman Matt McCutcheon (23-12, 14th Seed, Fourth at B1G Tournament) Penn State's lone freshmen qualifier, Matt McCutcheon is hoping the momentum he picked up at the Big Ten Championships carries over into this weekend.
While he went just 7-8 during the dual meet season, the redshirt freshman really began to flash his potential in the conference tournament, going 3-1 with his last two victories coming against top-15 opponents, including a 9-1 major of Nebraska's T.J. Dudley in the fourth place bout.
As impressive as McCutcheon's performance there was, now is when the challenge really begins. Not unlike many of his teammates, the 184-pounder has a tough second round opponent, with Arizona State's third seeded Blake Stauffer (31-1) most likely waiting for him if he can get past his first match.
Still, McCutcheon has the confidence of Sanderson, who believes his first-year wrestler has the confidence and skill to perform on the sport's grandest stage.
"I thought the best he's looked was at the Big Ten [Championships]," Sanderson said. "His best shots, his strongest finishes, more than anything just the best look he's had in his eye. I think he's going to wrestle with some fire."
197 Pounds: Junior Morgan McIntosh (26-2, Second Seed, First at B1G Tournament)
In college wrestling, it's generally thought that if you can win in the Big Ten, you can probably win against anyone. If so, Morgan McIntosh could very well be in line to claim his first individual national title this weekend.
A year after he earned his first All-American nod, McIntosh entered the current season with huge expectations and plenty of responsibility on his shoulders. Having just blazed his way to his first conference title, the junior is clearly living up to his reputation as Penn State's next leader and star.
Currently riding an 11-match winning streak that includes victories over five top-10 opponents, McIntosh has never looked better than he has since the start of the new year. Nonetheless, he has refused to get complacent.
As one of the team's captains, McIntosh knows he needs to not only win, but also get bonus points if Penn State is going to make any noise in the team race. Even after winning the Big Ten, he still hasn't been satisfied with his performance.
"It's not like a huge giant breakthrough for me, I've always known that I'm capable of [winning the conference tournament]," McIntosh said. "It was nice to get there and win that, but there's other things to worry about. There's always opportunites to score more and other things I could of done but I can still work on it."
While a lot can certainly happen in the tournament and nothing is set in stone, a trip to the finals for McIntosh could likely mean a matchup with top-ranked J'Den Cox of Missouri, last year's 197-pound national champion and a guy who hasn't lost all season.
When the two wrestlers faced off at the Southern Scuffle at the beginning of January, Cox won a low-scoring 2-1 match. Though he knows he can compete with the Tiger wrestler, McIntosh is more focused on winning each of his bouts by a large margin to bolster the team score than he is on preparing himself for a rematch.
"When you think about the team and all the guys around you, you do wrestle harder," McIntosh said. "I definitely feel like that. I don't want to win just for me. I want to win for the team. I've got great guys around me, they've all been working hard and I just want to go out there and score points."
285: Senior Jimmy Lawson (15-3, Eighth Seed, Sixth at B1G Tournament) By now, facing adversity is as common to Jimmy Lawson as putting on a singlet or trying to score a takedown.
Since transferring to Penn State in 2013, the Toms River, New Jersey, native has had so many setbacks it's been hard to keep track.
First, there was the personally disappointing 1-2 showing at his first NCAA Tournament. Then came the devastating knee injury that ended his 2014 season, followed by various ailments this year that prevented him from sustaining momentum. That's not to mention his three-year battle with Jon Gingrich for the starting heavyweight spot, something that would have been too much pressure for many to handle.
None of that matters anymore. With his final college tournament days away, Lawson is finally the Lions undisputed guy at 285 and has one more chance to become an All-American.
"I embraced the competition," Lawson said. "Jon's one of the best heavyweights in the nation and when you practice against someone like that you get better. I think coming to Penn State was the best opportunity to get better fast. It forced me to work harder every day. I've been more aggressive this year and I feel confident I can win a national title."
While Lawson is on the other side of the bracket than the two wrestlers who beat him this year, Iowa's Bobby Telford and Michigan's Adam Coon, he still will have plenty of difficult opponents to face. If Lawson wins his first two matches, he could easily face No. 1 Nick Gwiazdowski of North Carolina State with a birth in the semifinals on the line.
But that's all way ahead in the future and out of his control. For a guy who's gone through so much, Lawson is looking at this weekend as a chance to simply have some fun.
"You don't really feel pressure at this stage of the game," Lawson said. "If don't wrestle confident you're going to fail because everyone's going 100 percent. I'm not really feeling pressure I'm just excited. It's a great opportunity. I haven't been here in two years so I'm excited."