Penn State wrestling doesn’t have a lot of problems.
If it didn’t, wouldn’t have won 10 of the past 12 national championships and wouldn’t be well on its way to making it 11 of 13 this March.
One of the only problems coach Cael Sanderson and co. have to work through is one that most teams would love to have.
Penn State has the No. 12 wrestler in the country at 149 pounds, but true freshman Tyler Kasak still hasn’t nailed the spot down, per Sanderson. Kasak’s only wrestled in three of Penn State’s seven dual meets but has won and been impressive in all of them. He beat Lehigh’s Drew Munch in his college dual meet debut Dec. 3. More than a month later, he took on Oregon State’s Nash Singleton— ranked No. 12 at the time— and upset him with a 4-1 decision. Kasak’s most impressive performance came less than two weeks ago in Rec Hall. Kasak took on No. 14 Graham Rooks of Indiana and dominated him with a 15-0 tech fall.
He hasn’t competed in any Penn State’s three dual meets since, meaning his redshirt is still intact should Penn State want to use it.
In Kasak’s absence— he missed Penn State’s weekend dual meets at Michigan and Michigan State earlier this month—David Evans went 2-0.
This past Sunday, Penn State wrestling beat Maryland in College Park but Sanderson chose to have Kasak and Evans wrestle at Lock Haven’s Mat Town Open II, where Kasak won 4-2.
Sanderson to reporters in his weekly presser Tuesday that the staff still hasn’t made a decision.
“I think they both had three or four matches,” Sanderson said. “Which kind of helps with their match count and gives us a little bit of flexibility, and takes us a little bit of the urgency off of that decision. Obviously head to head and being in the same event plays a big role in where we’ll go with it.”
Samderosn said he felt Sunday was “an important part of the process.”
“I think this Sunday was an important part of the process,” he said. “But just saying, now that they both were able to pick up some more matches, we have a little bit more flexibility and time. It’s not something we have to decide by Friday night. We could let it play out a week or two.”
