Penn State wrestling coach Cael Sanderson gave an update on Marcus Blaze following the team’s season-opening win over Bloomsburg Thursday night at Rec Hall.
Blaze, who is moving up to 141 and is less than two weeks removed from winning a bronze medal at the Senior World Championships in Kazakhstan, wasn’t in the lineup for Penn Stage Thursday.
Nate Desmond, another option at 141, was scratched from weigh-ins. So Hayden Cunningham competed for Penn State, falling 7-1 to Bloomsburg’s Scotty Johnson. Blaze will be at 141 for Penn State eventually, but could that be Sunday night at Oklahoma.
Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said “possibly.”
The expectation all offseason was that Penn State’s 133 and 141 pounders would be a combination of Blaze and Masanosuke Ono. The question was which would he at 133 and which would he at 141. We got our answer this week, and saw Ono make his college debut at 133 Thursday (believe it or not, the guy who won a Senior World Championship at 20 won the match).
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Blaze will get plenty of wins himself.
He came to Penn State as one of the most hyped recruits in program history, winning four state championships in Ohio and coming to college as the No. 1 recruit in the country per FloWrestling’s big board. Last season, he finished fourth at the NCAA Championships in Cleveland, and everybody knew he’d go into Year 2 as one of the national title favorites at whatever weight class he was in.
InterMat has him ranked No. 2 at 141.
Penn State-Oklahoma is scheduled for 8 on ESPN+.
