Cunningham on last weekends performance - Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Hello Penn State Wrestling Fans!!!!

It was a pretty interesting week/weekend for our guys to say the least. Usually I am not bringing news to our fans that they do not already know but we did beat West Virginia on Friday 33-12 and tied Pittsburgh on Saturday night 19-19. Several of our guys stepped it up for us over the weekend which was very important because anytime you forfeit a weight you are already in a hole. Early in the year we would have been in a situation to be able to put someone out there at 197 but because we have had several guys decide that they could not commit 100% to the team they decided to quit. So that put us in a forfeit situation. A couple of our guys got their first pins of the year and Cameron Wade beat a guy from West Virginia who he lost to last year in an open tournament. Against Pittsburgh we got started in a hole again because of a forfeit to come and then losing our first three matches made our guys suck it up and try to get a team victory. Frank Molinaro, Cyler Sanderson, Dan Vallimont, and David Erwin all got major decisions which put us in position. Justin Ortega continues to improve and scored a late takedown for a victory as well. Wade was hurt while he was running sprints in warm up so we had fortunately brought Brendan Herlihy along with us because of the time he has been putting in the room and has put in over the past few years. Brendan had a tough test with a guy who is ranked in the top 12 in the country and was seconds away from holding him off of a major decision for a Penn State Victory. We did tie however which is not what we train for but all things considered the team fought hard.

There has been quite a lot of talk in regards to our decision to suspend one of our wrestlers for the weekend. Bottom line is there is a standard that has been set and there are rules that we agreed upon as a team and a couple of our guys made a poor decision which led to a 1 week suspension. This is staying consistent with what we have done with guys in similar situations in the past. Both of these guys are good kids, have learned a valuable lesson and will move on from here. This is a busy week for our guys because of exams but once they are over we head to Reno for our first team scored event of the year. Twenty five plus teams from across the country will be involved in the tournament. After Reno our guys have a few days off for the Holidays before we get back at it for the second half of the season. We will probably not see too many of you in Reno but we look forward to seeing you again on January 3 at Lock Haven.

I am not going to attach articles because it looks like pennstatewrestlingclub.org does post all the articles from the school and the Centre Daily Times so if you would like to read up on the team I will let you go there and check it out.

In other news two of our recruits the Alton brothers won the tough Ironman tournament in Ohio over the weekend. Also Aaron Anspach who wrestles for the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club will be competing in the Midlands tournament over the Holiday break.

Have a great week

GO LIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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