Jan. 22, 2016
By Ryan Hickey, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. ââ'¬" The goal of every wrestler is to finish. Finish their match strong. Finish practice strong. Finish their workouts strong.
For sophomore Matt McCutcheon, finishing his shots has been a work in progress since the first day he stepped on campus. And for all of the hard work he has put in during practice, it came to fruition last weekend to the joy of McCutcheon and his coaches, as well.
Finishing was the theme during last Friday's match for McCutcheon and head coach Cael Sanderson has noticed the work McCutcheon has put in to work on finishing his shots.
"[Matt]'s been working on finishing his shots since he got here," said Sanderson. "That's been an issue as a redshirt and even last year getting in on legs, he would have a nice shot but wouldn't finish."
While Sanderson believes that the sophomore made it harder for himself than he needed to against Nebraska's TJ Dudley, he was happy with the way McCutcheon fought back to stand victorious at the end of the night.
"He did a nice job finishing when he really had to. I think he could have finished better a couple times throughout that match when he didn't have to put himself in a position where he was down like that," said Sanderson.
McCutcheon, looking back on last weekend's matches, knew he had a big weekend coming up and is excited about the increase in talent he will be facing down the stretch.
"I knew I had some good matches going in so it was an exciting weekend for me and always looking forward to wrestling the better guys," said McCutcheon.
Despite going 2-0 on the weekend, including a thrilling, last second upset win over Dudley on Friday night, McCutcheon is still not satisfied at where he is at.
"I gotta find some things I have to improve on and work from there in practice the rest of the week," said McCutcheon.
One of the biggest areas that the sophomore has been working on has been trying to finish his shots.
"One big thing is finishing shots. That was important in my match. I let him scoot the corner on me a couple of times so I had to get back to basics when finishing a shot," said McCutcheon.
Another area McCutcheon has really focused on is riding his opponent tougher. These are the areas, McCutcheon says, if he can shore up now, they won't turn into bigger problems later in the season, which could ultimately be the difference in a win or a loss.
After missing a couple weeks with back spasms, McCutcheon can gain confidence from these past matches, but moving forward, he still isn't satisfied with how the matches played out.
"It's definitely a confidence builder but at the same time, there were a lot of things that I did wrong in the match and things I need to learn from," said McCutcheon.
The confidence that McCutcheon is gaining isn't going unnoticed, as Sanderson see's the progress the sophomore has been making and is happy where he is at this point in the season.
"Matt's wrestling really well this year. He's confident and he's aggressive. He's looking good and looking strong, so we are real happy where he is right now."
The 184 pounder's key to figuring out his mistakes is by treating every match like a loss and examining his efforts through that perspective. By taking the good with the bad in every match, McCutcheon is able to learn and move on to the next match. The Apollo, Pa. native also has a short memory, putting each match in the past and only moving forward with the the areas where he can improve in. This is a strategy that McCutcheon believes helps him to focus more on the small details.
The Nittany Lions, holding the No. 1 rank since the start, have been wrestling well all season but McCutcheon, just like his teammates, believes that there is always room for improvement, a mindset that keeps the team hungry.
"I think that one thing with our team is that we are always looking to improve and we are supposed to be at our best by the time Nationals come around, so we have a lot of time left to keep getting better on the little things," said McCutcheon.
With three potential top 10 matchups in the upcoming weeks, McCutcheon believes that the coaching staff does a great job of keeping the team motivated through the constant message of improvement and never being satisfied.
"I think our coaching staff is great at picking out the things that each person needs to improve on," said McCutcheon. "I think that we are solid right now, but there's always room for improvement."