By Andy Elder
UNIVERSITY PARK — After completing, a 10-10 regular season and a 3-5 mark in the Big Ten, Penn State wasn’t expected to be among the conference leaders in the seedings for this weekend’s Big Ten Championships at Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
While the Nittany Lions were only accorded three seeds among the top four at their respective weights, the fact that nine Nittany Lions were seeded seems encouraging.
“It’s important for our guys to get the seeds so they can, in the best-case scenario, not wrestle the number one or two seed right off the bat, “Penn State coach Troy Sunderland said. “The main thing is, like we told the team yesterday, you have to throw the seeds out, throw the rankings out, it’s the Big Ten tournament and you need to be ready to wrestle right away.
“We want get them to think about the preparation part of it, after weigh-ins and being ready to wrestle when the tournament starts. Real fast, and some of our guys have experienced this, they can be out of the tournament if they’re not ready to wrestle.”
Leading the Penn State list is defending Big Ten 184-pound champion Eric Bradley. The Nittany Lion junior is seeded second, behind only Brian Glynn of Illinois.
“It’s important to me because there are a couple of guys in the Big Ten I’ve lost to this season and I want to avenge those losses, “Bradley said. “Whether they have me ranked first, second or eighth, I feel like my goal is No. 1. Whatever I have to do, whoever I have to go through, it’s fine with me. It’s important for me to go in and defend my title.”
Next highest are sophomore Nate Galloway (157) and freshman Phil Davis (197), both of whom were seeded fourth.
Senior 125-pounder Adam Smith was seeded sixth.
Both freshman Bryan Heller (133) and junior DeWitt Driscoll (141) were seeded seventh.
The other seeded Nittany Lions were all eighth seeds. They include: freshman Jack Decker (149), sophomore James Yonushonis (174) and junior Joel Edwards (heavyweight).
Only senior 165-pounder Jarrad Turner was left unseeded.
To try to capitalize on those seeds, Sunderland said he and his staff put the team through some grueling workouts last week.
“After the Ohio State dual, we were obviously disappointed, a little bit with the effort and the outcome, “he said. “We had a long talk with the team that night and again on Monday with the total team. Basically, the thing we wanted to get across, it wasn’t punishment for the way they performed Friday night, it was preparation for the Big Ten tournament.
“It was probably one of the toughest practices we ever had in a long, long time. And yet it was something that we needed.”
Both Illinois and Michigan, which tied for the regular-season Big Ten championship with 7-0-1 records, were accorded four top seeds each.
The Illinois No. 1 seeds were: Kyle Ott (125), Mark Jayne (133), Pete Friedl (174) and Brian Glynn (184).
The Michigan No. 1 seeds were: Josh Churella (141), Eric Tannenbaum (149), Ryan Bertin (157) and Ryan Churella (165).
The other two top seeds are Ohio State’s J.D. Bergman at 197 and Minnesota heavyweight Cole Konrad.
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