As expected, Penn State wrestling star Luke Lilledahl is an All-American for the second straight season.
Equally expected, true freshman Marcus Blaze became an All-American in his first try.
With a 2-1 win over Iowa’s Dean Peterson in a tiebreaker, Lilledahl has achieved All-America status for the second year in a row at 125 pounds, and will be in the NCAA semifinals for the first time.
Lilledahl came into both tournaments as the No 1 seed coming off a Big Ten championship. Last year, Lilledahl won his two matches Thursday night to advance to the quarterfinals, where he was upset by Lehigh’s Sheldon Seymour, who was seeded No. 8. Lilledahl regrouped to take third and become an All-American for the first time.
Lilledahl has his eyes set on something bigger: a national championship. To get there, many anticipated that he’d take on Seymour again, who came into this tournament seeded fourth.
But Seymour fell in his quarterfinal bout to Oklahoma State’s Troy Spratley, who Lilledahl hasn’t wrestled before.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Blaze came into the national championship with a chip on his shoulder, having lost the Big Ten championship in sudden victory to Ohio State’s Ben Davino. Blaze responded with two 17-2 tech falls Thursday, and then a 5-3 win over Iowa’s Drake Ayala in the quarterfinals.
In the semifinals, Blaze will take on Davino once again. Blaze one the first meeting between the two Feb. 13 at the Bryce Jordan Center in a first tiebreaker 3-2.
In his loss to Davino— a 2-2 nail biter that Davino won after two tiebreakers due to having more riding time— some felt that Blaze wasn’t aggressive enough, which led to the low scoring.
That hasn’t been an issue in Blaze’s first two matches of the NCAA Championships.
