[Photo Story] Penn State Wrestling Dominates Iowa In BJC Dual

Johnny DeMasi | Onward State

Penn State wrestling showed off once again with a commanding victory over Iowa last Friday.

The No. 1 ranked Nittany Lions won eight out of 10 matches in front of a sold-out Bryce Jordan Center crowd. The victory brought the blue and white to a record of 10-0 on the year, solidifying their first-place spot in the country.

As always, our photographers were on hand to capture all the action.

The night started with a dominating victory at the 125-pound weight class, with No. 7 Luke Lilledahl securing a 22-6 victory over No. 26 Joey Cruz. The freshman notched five takedowns in the final period to earn a tech fall win.

Following the first match, Penn State senior Kurt McHenry moved up to 133 pounds and fell to No. 3 Drake Ayala. McHenry was a surprise appearance and suffered a tech fall in the second period.

In the third match of the night, No. 3 Beau Bartlett defeated Cullan Shriver to secure the Nittany Lions an 8-5 lead. Despite many, many breaks for blood timeouts, Bartlett maintained control throughout the match.

Next up, sophomore Shayne Van Ness, ranked No. 4 in the 149 weight class, came out on top after an impressive performance against No. 2 ranked Kyle Parco. Despite coming into the dual with the lower rank, Van Ness took down Parco by tech fall.

In possibly the most exciting match of the night, No. 3 Tyler Kasak defeated No. 1 Jacori Teemer in an amazing 5-2 victory to boost the lead to 15-5 at the break.

To start off the second half of the dual, sophomore and top-ranked Mitchell Mesenbrink and No. 2 Levi Haines both won their matches, bringing the Nittany Lions lead to 23-5.

No. 1 Carter Starocci was up next, and pulled off a 3-1 win over Iowa’s Angelo Ferarri. Starocci didn’t get to wrestle Gabe Arnold in the match everyone was talking about, but he played through Ferarri’s defense to scrape out a win.