College Wrestling
#1 Penn State 38, Rider University 4

LAWRENCEVILLE—Before a standing room only crowd of 1,800 in Alumni Gymnasium, the Rider University wrestling team lost to top ranked Penn State University on Saturday afternoon.

The match was televised on The Comcast Network.

“The team score was a little lopsided but bout by bout it was a tough match,” said Penn State Associate Head Coach Cody Sanderson.  “We've wrestled Rider several times and we know each time it will be a scrappy match.”

“I appreciate Penn State coming to Rider,” said Gary Taylor, in his 38th season as head coach of the Bronc squad.  “They are the number one team in the nation and to be gracious enough over the last four years to wrestle Rider, it obviously helps with the community and I do appreciate them coming.”

At heavyweight, sophomore Mauro Correnti (Delran/Holy Cross) won his seventh bout of the season and improved to 4-2 in dual meets for Rider's only team points.

“The past couple of weeks, I've been struggling and the coaches got me to focus on wrestling just for me and not worrying about the team score," said Correnti who scored a 17-6 major decision.  "I just went out there with a relaxed attitude.  The atmosphere was great; I've never wrestled in a dual meet with more than 50 people so for me to be here now, in front of all these fans, it was just awesome.”

“Mauro did a great job,” Taylor said.  “He gets after it and has a high belief system.  I thought he did a nice job controlling the tempo.”

Correnti led PSU's Caleb Livingston 4-1 midway through the opening period and a takedown at the end of the period gave Correnti a 7-3 lead.

Two Correnti takedowns gave Rider an 11-5 lead at the end of two periods and riding time amounted to the final score.

In the feature bout of the afternoon between top ranked Zain Retherford and #14 149 sophomore B.J. Clagon (Toms River/Toms River HS South), Retherford used 1:52 of riding time to escape with a 2-1 win.   

Clagon used an escape with five seconds left in the second period to take a 1-0 lead with Retherford using an escape of his own at the beginning of period three to tie the bout 1-1.

At 157, #20 sophomore Chad Walsh (Cherry Hill/Camden Catholic) gave #3 Jason Nolf all he could handle before losing 18-7.  Trailing 4-1, Walsh used two escapes to get to within one point early in the second period before Nolf used an escape and takedown to lead 6-4 after two periods.   

Nolf had a two-point takedown followed by back exposure for two points of near fall at the end of the third period to lock up the major decision.

At 165, #15 senior Conor Brennan (Brick/Brick Township) used a takedown at the first period buzzer to lead #20 Shakur Rasheed 3-2 and tied 3-3 with 32 seconds left in the second period, Rasheed handed Brennan his first loss of the season, winning by fall.

At 184, sophomore Michale Fagg-Daves (Somerset/Franklin) allowed only a takedown (first period) and escape (second period) to #13 Matt McCutcheon, before losing 3-0.

At 197, junior Ryan Wolfe (New Castle, Del./Caravel Academy) scored on an escape to get to within 2-1 against #1 Morgan McIntosh at the end of the opening period.  McIntosh scored a four-point near fall at the end of the second period to lead 6-1 enroute to the 10-1 major decision.

“That's the one thing that we have given back to them,” Taylor said about the competitiveness of each dual.  “There are a couple of matches that we didn't want to be scrappy, we wanted to win period, end of story.  With that said, seeing this competition will help our wrestlers throughout the rest of the season, at the conference championship and at NCAAs.”

-RU-

#1 Penn State 38, Rider 4

125 #4 Nico Megaludis (PSU) tech. fall Brenden Calas (RID)                     20-5      5-0
133 #6 Jordan Conaway(PSU) major dec. Zach Valcarce (RID)                 18-4      9-0
141 Kade Moss (PSU) dec. Paul Kirchner (RID)                                         13-6      12-0
149 #1 Zain Retherford (PSU) dec. #14 B.J. Clagon (RID)                         2-1        15-0
157 #3 Jason Nolf (PSU) major dec. #20 Chad Walsh (RID)                      18-7      19-0 
165 #20 Shakur Rasheed (PSU) wbf #15 Conor Brennan (RID)                 4:28      25-0
174 #5 Bo Nickal (PSU) wbf Wayne Stinson (RID)                                      3:08      31-0
184 #13 Matt McCutcheon (PSU) def. Michale Fagg-Daves (RID)              3-0        34-0
197 #1 Morgan McIntosh (PSU) major dec. Ryan Wolfe (RID)                    10-1      38-0
285 Mauro Correnti (RID) major dec. Caleb Livingston (PSU)                     17-6      38-4