Weekend Storylines to Follow (12/13/24)

We’re almost a week removed from Vegas and the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational. With that in mind, and the fact that many schools are in or about to start exams, this week’s college schedule is very light. There are only a handful of duals on the schedule and no tournaments. Even so, there should be enough wrestling to keep you occupied and force you to procrastinate just a little longer with your holiday shopping. Some of the best duals of the weekend occur tonight, so let’s talk about them and get ready for the action. Friday #25 Army West Point at Morgan State I think that Army should dominate the first half of this dual, but the back end could be quite competitive - even if Army has the higher-ranked wrestlers. Let’s start at 174 lbs in a battle between a pair of wrestlers that came from Pennsylvania Prep schools. Dalton Harkins (Malvern Prep) and Darrien Roberts (Wyoming Seminary). Each comes in with an identical 9-3 record. Harkins is currently ranked #27. At 184 lbs, Morgan State’s Kingsley Menifee might be favored over any of Army’s options. Heavyweight has #26 Lucas Stoddard against Northern Colorado transfer Xavier Doolin. These two met twice in 2023-24 and both matches went Stoddard’s way. However, the second meeting was much closer - only a two-point win for Stoddard. With the news this offseason that Morgan State is a member of the EIWA, this is now a conference matchup. Morgan State will be seeking their first EIWA win, while this is the first conference dual of the year for Army. #18 Rutgers at Clarion We’ll get to see a lot of Rutgers over the next two days as they take on Clarion tonight and participate in Kent State’s quad tomorrow. I’m interested to see how the 184 lb situation shakes out for the Scarlet Knights. Returning starter Brian Soldano is as exciting as anyone in the country, but that exciting style sometimes doesn’t allow for consistency. Recently, Shane Cartagena-Walsh has seen some time at the weight and done well. With 197 lber John Poznanski out of the lineup, the RU staff has moved Soldano up and Soldano has responded nicely at the higher weight. Let’s see what happens this weekend. As for the Clarion dual, there’s a pair of matches I’m eager to see. At 157 lbs, there is #33 Conner Harer, a true freshman and a huge recruit for the Scarlet Knights who has acquitted himself well in the early going. He has veteran Alejandro Herrera-Rondon from Clarion, who has been in-and-out of the rankings for the past two seasons. Herrera-Rondon will be a good test for the youngster. 174 lbs has All-American Jackson Turley and national qualifier John Worthing. Circumstances above Worthing led to him being bumped out of the most recent national rankings; however, Worthing is quality and capable of an upset. #6 Ohio State at #28 Pittsburgh One of the two biggest duals of the weekend pits Ohio State and Pittsburgh against each other. Last year, these two teams met and the Panthers pulled the 21-13 upset. This version of Pitt comes in at 2-0 with good wins against Lehigh and Navy. Ohio State, obviously, represented a huge step up in competition. Before Vegas, I did some research to see what I could find about the Buckeye lineup. It sounds like Ohio State could get Carson Kharchla and Ryder Rogotzke back in the lineup. If not tonight, then next week in Nashville. I’d expect to see Dylan D’Emilio tonight, as well. The Buckeyes couldn’t have one dual with everyone at full strength as Nick Feldman was injured in Vegas and I don’t expect that he’ll compete tonight. For individual matches to watch, make sure to watch 133 lbs. Nic Bouzakis and Vince Santianello split matches last season. Santaniello got a win in the Clarion Open and Bouzakis evened the score in their dual. The Buckeye is coming off an excellent consolation run at the CKLV that saw him finish third - with his only loss coming via a point to the eventual champion. Off the mat, there’s plenty of familiarity between these two coaching staffs. Pitt head coach Keith Gavin trained at Ohio State’s RTC under the watchful eye of Lou Rosselli. Rosselli served as Buckeye head coach Tom Ryan’s right-hand man but is in his first year on Gavin’s staff. Pittsburgh assistant coach Luke Pletcher was a three-time All-American for Ryan in Columbus. #4 Oklahoma State at #19 Oklahoma This is the new version of this old rivalry. David Taylor gets to experience Bedlam for the first time as Oklahoma State’s head coach. Oklahoma’s Roger Kish is in the midst of his second season leading the Sooners. Taylor’s squad will look to extend Oklahoma State’s winning streak over their in-state rival to 20 this evening. Ryan Holmes has broken down the dual more in-depth here. Saturday Kent State Quad Kent State will host Buffalo, Gardner-Webb, and Rutgers for a quad tomorrow. I’d expect some of the dual results to be lopsided in Rutgers’ favor, but what else to watch out for? Buffalo is seeking their first MAC win under first-year head coach Donnie Vinson. The Bulls opened their 2024-25 season with a win over Sacred Heart, but have dropped their next six duals. Could Kent State represent MAC win #1 for Vinson? The top wrestler for Gardner-Webb this season has been 141 lber Todd Carter. Carter is 5-1 with three wins over two NCAA qualifiers. His only loss came to #3 Beau Bartlett. Currently, he sits at #25 in the national rankings, a spot behind Rutgers’ Joey Olivieri. The highest placewinner for Kent State at last weekend’s heavyweight Brentan Simmerman. He was third in a weight class that featured a pair of returning national qualifiers. Simmerman has quietly put together a 10-3 record through the first month and a half of competition. Only a redshirt freshman, he could be someone to watch for a run at the MAC Tournament or in the coming years. California Baptist at Clarion So much in college wrestling comes down to consistency. Lots of guys are capable of posting a big win or two. The trouble can be stringing those wins together on an everyday basis. California Baptist has a few wrestlers that had quality wins in Vegas (Drayden Morton/165 and Nathan Haas/184). Morton beat the ranked Luka Wick and Haas defeated Caleb Uhlenhopp, who was on the cusp of the rankings, himself. Now, can they build off those wins and get their hands raised at Clarion and West Virginia? Nebraska-Kearney at #9 Northern Iowa Periennel D2 power Nebraska-Kearney will have their hands full with a ninth-ranked Northern Iowa team that is good in duals and in tournament competition. Perhaps the best match of the night will take place at heavyweight with Crew Howard, who was third in the nation last season for the Lopers against UNI’s Lance Runyon. Runyon has made the move that all wrestlers dream of, going from 174 to 285 lbs, and has been better than ever. He was seventh at the CKLV (in a stacked weight) and is currently 10-2 on the year. The current qualifying rules for the DI level discourage competition against non-DI schools as they do not count towards qualification status. That being said, it’s nice to see a dual like this with a top-ten DI school squaring off against a top-ten D2 power. Sunday Binghamton at Long Island Who would win in a fight between a Shark and a Bearcat? That sounds like the type of argument we’d have in college late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. We’ll find out a version of this answer as Binghamton heads to Long Island for this all-New York and all-EIWA affair. The match I’m focused on here comes at 125 lbs. If you are someone who looks closely at the national rankings, you might notice that the end of 125 lbs is sort of wide open. There are a lot of guys that were under consideration for the last few spots. Two of them were Long Island’s Robbie Sagaris and Binghamton’s Carson Wagner. A win by either would help make their case for a berth in the rankings or perhaps at NCAA qualification time. I’m now sure how to make sense of the results from these two last seasons. Wagner won this dual by tech fall in mid-November. A few weeks later, they met in Vegas and Wagner won again, 2-1. They clashed for a third time at the EIWA Championships and that proved to be the charm for Sagaris - to the tune of an 11-3 major decision. Will this year’s result continue moving towards Sagaris? Wyoming at #1 Penn State Just last week, this match was moved to Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center, so there should be a good-sized crowd on hand to witness their beloved, top-ranked Nittany Lions against a solid Wyoming squad. Wyoming is expected to be without two of their better wrestlers in Jore Volk (125) and Joey Novak (197). That’s unfortunate as they would have made for two of the best matches of the day, as they are in weight classes that feature talented PSU freshmen. The Cowboys still have three ranked wrestlers #28 Cole Brooks (Wyoming), #22 Gabe Willochell (149), and #19 Jared Hill (157). This will be the first-ever meeting between the two schools in dual competition. Michigan State at CSU Bakersfield The big question on wrestling fans’ minds regarding this match is “Will AJ Ferrari be in the CSU Bakersfield lineup?” Ferrari is said to be dealing with a minor injury. He was initially listed in the CKLV preseeds, but was removed before the brackets came out. Were he to return here, he’d face Michigan State redshirt freshman #27 Remy Cotton - a solid test for someone without much official mat time over the last few years. After the 197 lb match, look at the heavyweights. Both Max Vanadia and Jake Andrews could be working towards a spot in the national rankings. Vanadia is currently 6-6, while Andrews is 6-2 after a 1-2 showing at the CKLV. American at Davidson In this dual, American assistant coach Joey Dance heads down south for a dual with his previous employer, Davidson. The match to watch here comes at 157 lbs between Davidson’s Tanner Peake and American’s Jack Nies. These two tangled last year and it was Nies who prevailed in tiebreakers. #12 Iowa State at North Dakota State This dual takes place at Humboldt High School alma mater of Iowa State head coach Kevin Dresser. The Cyclones typically hold a dual per year in Humboldt’s gymnasium. After Dresser’s mid-week presser, I don’t know what to expect from the Cyclones on Sunday. Their lineup has been in flux throughout the first month of the season with wrestlers changing weights and a few injuries mixed in. Vegas hit Iowa State hard and they’ll be without some of their biggest guns. Anthony Echemendia, Evan Bockman, and Yonger Bastida will not wrestle. It seems like MJ Gaitan may not go, either. On the other hand, someone expected to make their 2024-25 dual debut is Cody Chittum. There were some indications that Chittum would redshirt this season, but that looks like it won’t happen. Looking at ISU vs NDSU, the 133 and 141 lb matches should be good. The Frost twins are at those two weights for the Cyclones and are expected to face Kyle Burwick and Kellyn March, respectively. 149 lber Gavin Drexler is currently ranked #30 in the country and will be a difficult matchup for whoever is tabbed to replace Echemendia. California Baptist at #20 West Virginia Like the previous dual, this will be another “homecoming-ish” event. This dual takes place at the high school of WVU’s two-time All-American Peyton Hall. With his title in Vegas, Hall became the first WVU wrestler in over 20 years to win the CKLV. The senior will have another opportunity to wrestle in the school where he starred and claimed four West Virginia state championships - becoming only the 19th wrestler to achieve the feat, the first from Oak Glen. Hall will have to contend with California Baptist’s Drayden Morton. As we mentioned earlier, Morton had a notable win from Vegas. Obviously, it will be much tougher against Hall. If All-American Ty Watters is healthy at 149 lbs, there could be an interesting match with California Baptist’s true freshman Paul Kelly. Kelly was a top-50 recruit in the Class of 2024 and sports a 9-3 record thus far. At the Roadrunner Open, Kelly beat Oregon State veteran Noah Tolentino and dropped a one-point match to Jaden Abas - who was third in Vegas.

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