In front of a record crowd of 6,047 at Stabler Arena Friday night, the No. 13-ranked Lehigh wrestling team battled No. 3-ranked Penn State throughout in a 23-10 loss to the Nittany Lions.
The Mountain Hawks (1-3) trailed just 11-7 at the halfway point after Phillipsburg graduate Brandon Paetzell got Lehigh off to a flying start at 125 pounds with a 15-5 major decision over Nittany Lion Brandon Meredith that had the crowd roaring.
“It feels amazing, it gives me goosebumps to come out wrestle in front of all these people,” Paetzell said. “It all feels like home to me and now it is home. That’s a perk of wrestling 125 now, I get to start the match and I love igniting the crowd. It was like I did wrestling at 106 for Phillipsburg. Tonight was like a big match in The Pit, just a lot more people. It’s almost hard to put it into words.”
Unfortunately, Paetzell’s win was the last time Lehigh scored bonus points on the night, and not even rousing last-second wins from Jimmy Hoffman at 149 and Jake Jakobsen at 197 would overcome Penn State’s powerhouses up top where top-ranked Vincenzo Joseph (165). Mark Hall (174) and Anthony Cassar (285), all national champions (Joseph a two-time NCAA winner), posted wins to guide the Nittany Lions (2-1) to their 10th straight win against their most-wrestled rivals. Penn State now leads the series that started in 1911 71-34-3.
Yet in each of the matches against PSU’s No. 1 trio, Lehigh scored a takedown -- Phillipsburg graduate and deferred freshman Brian Meyer against Joseph, No. 2-ranked Jordan Kutler against Hall and No. 10-ranked Jordan Wood against Cassar -- which was emblematic of the Mountain Hawks’ overall effort.
“We really competed tonight based on the performances,” Lehigh coach Pat Santoro said. “We could have competed better, maybe we could have won three more matches. When we wrestled Oklahoma State here (Nov. 16), even though we won, I was not happy with the performances. In the losses to Pitt and Princeton, we competed hard, but not well. Today was something of the same thing against a really tough foe. We just need to finish matches better. If we did that today, we might have won three more matches and then who knows?”
Perhaps the performance Santoro was happiest with was Meyer’s, an athlete in his first year of collegiate competition (he deferred his eligibility last season) with a 2-7 record who wrestled fearlessly against a two-time national champ.
Meyer trailed 2-0 after the first period and was trailing 2-1 in the second period after he escaped when he got in on a single, drove forward aggressively, lifted Joseph in the air and finished with confidence as the Lehigh crowd expressed its delight. Joseph quickly escaped to tie the match at 3 and won 7-4 with a four-point third period, but Meter left the mat to a warm reaction from the appreciative Mountain Hawk faithful who knew they’d seem something special.
“Leg attacks are my strength, and I was able to get the inside reach on the right side,” Meyer said. “He had some leverage on me and could have leveled it off but (teammate) Kent Lane and I practice that move all the time. I was able to lift and I worked hard for my finish, and I felt pretty good at that point.”
He had a right to.
“I am so happy with the way Brian wrestled tonight,” Santoro said. “He went with a two-time NCAA champion. The kid is a worker, he wants to get better and every day he gets better.”
Santoro mentioned Lehigh needs to finish better, and he can cite two examples of that from Friday.
First, at 149, Hoffman scored with two seconds left in the sudden victory overtime period to edge PSU’s Jarod Verkleeren 3-1, a result that kept Lehigh in the match and brought the crowd, at least that part of wearing brown and gold, to its feet.
“I knew I could get the takedown, I felt really good and I kept pushing the pace,” Hoffman said. “At the he had double underhooks to jack me up but he didn’t like where he was, and he went to sit down and tried to head-pinch me. As soon as his felt his hips transfer I ran over the top and got the takedown.”
Jakobsen, ranked No. 15 by Intermat, showed off his relentlessness when his takedown with 12 seconds left in the third period -- he had been working towards it for over a minute -- beat No. 20 Kyle Conel, who’s a real load, 3-1.
“I knew he was getting tired and my gas tank has been getting better and better since Oklahoma State,” said Jakobsen, a Stroudsburg graduate. “I am not the world’s most technical wrestler but I will work hard and grind you down.”
On paper, the night’s marquee match was at 174, a No. 1 v. No. 2 matchup. Hall dominated the first period, leading 2-0 with 2:30 of riding time and a stall warning on Kutler. It was 3-0 Hall in the second period when Kutler tore off a remarkably athletic move that had Hall’s shoulders pile-driven onto the mat. Kutler scored a takedown but many thought he should have had 2 back points and, perhaps, even a fall. Hall went on to win 7-2.
As Santoro noted, with matches like 174, it wouldn’t have taken much for the final score to have been very different.
“If we keep doing the right things every day, with guys having great practices and buying in 100 percent to what we are doing, we’ll start winning these close matches,” Santoro said. “But we have to have belief. We can’t teach belief, you have to earn it.”
Wrestlers like Paetzell, Meyer, Hoffman, and Jakobsen -- indeed almost all the Mountain Hawks -- richly earned the right to believe in themselves in the cauldron of a packed Stabler Arena against Penn State.
No. 3 Penn State 23, No. 13 Lehigh 10
125 pounds: No. 11 Brandon Paetzell (5-2), L, md. Brandon Meredith (7-3), 15-5
133: No. 4 Roman Bravo-Young (6-0), PSU, d. Jaret Lane (5-2), 7-2
141: No. 3 Nick Lee (7-0), PSU, tf. Joe Lobeck (1-2), 7:00 (22-7)
149: Jimmy Hoffman (7-3), L, d. Jarod Verkleeren (4-2), 3-1 (OT SV)
157: No. 6 Brady Berge (1-0), PSU, d. No. 13 Josh Humphreys (5-4), 5-3
165: No. 1 Vincenzo Joseph (3-0), PSU, d. Brian Meyer (2-8), 7-4
174: No. 1 Mark Hall (6-0), PSU, d. No. 2 Jordan Kutler (7-1), 7-2
184: Aaron Brooks (4-0), PSU, d. Chris Weiler (6-5), 10-5
197: No. 15 Jake Jakobsen (5-4), L, d. No. 20 Kyle Conel (2-3), 3-1
285: No. 1 Anthony Cassar (3-0), PSU, d. No. 10 Jordan Wood (5-3), 8-4
Records: Lehigh 1-3, Penn State 2-1
Attendance: 6,047 (Stabler Arena record)
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