Lilledahl got pinned by Poulin then won his 3rd place match
Forrest won out in consolation to place 5th.
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- Thread starter yakrider
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Forrest won out in consolation to place 5th.
Nailed it. So many examples of highly regarded freshmen taking somewhat unexpected early season losses. It's part of the process. They don't become an All-American in November. Plenty of time to adjust to college level wrestling.
I wonder how much of the freshman inconsistency can be fixed with a good diet. I’m guessing true freshman are more prone to weight gain and more extreme cutting than their older peers.
I've said before but it's not even a freshman thing necessarily. I've seen our guys do 180s in the season period (Q in 2011, Cassar lost to Hoffman the same season he beat Moore, Nico was a 10 seed in 2012)
You're not supposed to be peaked in November.
You're not supposed to be peaked in November.
Keaton Subjeck was no slouch, but also no AA either, in 2016 when he put 18 on VJ in Rec Hall in VJ’s second match of his redshirt freshman year. Things turned out okay for VJ that year.
Not to mention the inconsistency from chasing all of the pretty blonde and brunette coeds on campus.
on top of the good analysis so far, haines wasn't a "transcendent" recruit. he was a great recruit, but very little reason to think he was going to come in and be a top 5 guy from opening weekend. way too much was made about his open wins over paddy gallagher (who is not that good) and cerniglia (who is also not that good and got hurt in the match before). surrounding those wins we saw him lose to gaitan, some guy whose name we'd never heard of, and twice to mesenbrink.
zero reason to be concerned. he's going to be very good. luckily you don't need him this year, so if he's not ready it's no big deal.
zero reason to be concerned. he's going to be very good. luckily you don't need him this year, so if he's not ready it's no big deal.
How dare you bring Fact-based analysis to this board!! Haines might have been #9 on his year's Big Board but he chose PSU. Being our highest rated recruit he automatically becomes a "Transcendent" recruit. Anything less than a 4X champ is a disappointment here. Gaitan just got lucky. Clear to anyone here. Take your obvious rational Bias to another board sir.
Levi finished really strong. He beat Brayden Roberts 16-2 and Roberts is a good wrestler. Was a top 50 recruit out of hs and went 24-13 last year for West Virginia. Roberts beat Handlovic from Cornell the previous match who is also pretty tough. I wonder how much the cut effected Levi? First time down in the season is tough. My freshman year I started at Ohio University and cut a bunch of weight but we had day before weigh-ins thank god. The biggest change though was going from my mom making my healthy meals to being in the cafeteria where I had a million options and I definitely didn’t always choose well. I’m sure guys now and especially at a school like PSU diet is dialed in but no matter what the first time down is always brutal. It seems like as the day went on Levi’s offense picked up.
Jax beat Ungar 11-9. That’s a really good win. Ungar is tough and I think he beat Steen last year. Also lost only 2-1 to Poulin today. I can’t believe how tough this kid is for a freshman in hs
The other stud hs kid Shapiro had a hell of a tournament. Beating Jude Swisher and Sam Hillegas in back to back matches is impressive. I figured he would beat up Swisher but I thought Hillegas might give him a go. Shapiro is going to be a good one. How big do you think he gets in college?
Jax beat Ungar 11-9. That’s a really good win. Ungar is tough and I think he beat Steen last year. Also lost only 2-1 to Poulin today. I can’t believe how tough this kid is for a freshman in hs
The other stud hs kid Shapiro had a hell of a tournament. Beating Jude Swisher and Sam Hillegas in back to back matches is impressive. I figured he would beat up Swisher but I thought Hillegas might give him a go. Shapiro is going to be a good one. How big do you think he gets in college?
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Donovan Ball is a really great backup and would start on a ton of teams. His only loss was to #7 in the country Jonathan Loew from Cornell 3-0. PSU hasn’t had great depth but this year it seems like they do. Evans is another kid who wrestled great today and would start at many schools. He gave Cornella his toughest match of the day 9-7. Cornella beat Koderhandt in the finals 15-2 and Koderhandt was 26-9 and a national qualifier last year. Pretty good from Evans
Really? You don’t think he goes up at all in his college career? He seems a bit lanky but I haven’t seen him in person
I think they split matches last year.
I was slow to come around on Evans, but he's turned me around. I can see him manning 133 for us next year.
No idea, but I doubt he's beating BB for 141 so there's that.
Always appreciate your analysis and it is accurate but Cerniglia got hurt in his match with Levi. Levi hit a turk to a bow and arrow in the 1st. Cerniglia was a Top 20 guy for 2 years so for a high schooler to do that was why we were impressed but obviously you can argue it was "one move" that decided the entire match and it could go differently otherwise.
His loss to Mesenbrink looked better once Mesenbrink got Silver at Junior Worlds. I think a lot of people were more concerned since he wasn't a big name at the time. Similarly, Levi wrestled 3 matches (teching Caleb Henson, Jordan Wiliams and Hunter Garvin) and he was noticeably fatigued by the finals.
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Teching Caleb Henson seems especially impressive after what Henson did over the weekend.
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And that's why I still really like him. The body of work is really solid and no reason to believe he's not as good as advertised.
Btw my bad - no idea why I wrote Matt Singleton. Levi beat Hunter Garvin to make the Finals.
I remember because Garvin used a lot of upper body throws and McKnight was not happy some of those positions were allowed.
I remember because Garvin used a lot of upper body throws and McKnight was not happy some of those positions were allowed.
And not in a TD + 4 guts sort of way.
1 + 1, 4 TDs and a gut to finish it after being down 2-0.
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Does anyone remember when Nick Lee lost to Brock Zacherl at an open during his RS experiment? Yeah, neither do I. 
The freak out is silly (and I do genuinely believe it was a cut issue given the information at hand). But also Brock was really, really good from day one at Clarion.Does anyone remember when Nick Lee lost to Brock Zacherl at an open during his RS experiment? Yeah, neither do I.
Yeah, did he ever AA? I know he was on the cusp. Maybe not a complete comparison, but young wrestlers make mistakes early in their D1 careers pretty regularly that they are able to clean up. A lot of talk back then about how sloppy Nick was. He sure ain’t that now.
He did not, which is sad considering he had damn near 150 wins including his RS year.
This .... Brock Zacherl would be the 7 seed that year at NCAAs also. The guy Levi lost to isn't a NQ.
Nick looked fantastic before he got his redshirt pulled. He was teching basically all his non NQ level guys.
Out of curiosity, do you recall what McKnight's beef was with those positions?
Yes, he finished around .500 at 190 and went 1-1 at 190 and then was NCAA Champ at 285 the next year.
David Carr came right out and lost at the Cyclone open. Cael lost that redshirt year to a nobody (paul jenn) and still ended up being decent. Losses early in the career will not define careers. If these type of losses are happening throughout the second full season of a college wrestler there is reason for concern.
For Levi I expect that he'll develop more for longer than some others. I believe that he is a very young freshman, so likely has more maturing left than some.
A loss, given the PSU coach's emphasis on "the process", is often better for the wrestler in the long run than wins. It gets their (the wrestler's) attention more than victories, with an increased desire to improve.
Haines' loss gets a meh from me.
Haines' loss gets a meh from me.
i've never bought the "loss=motivation" angle. what it does do is expose areas of technical weakness which is very valuable.
I always forget how young Levi is. Was he still U17 eligible this year?
Pretty sure he was not. If I am not mistaken, the final year of U17 eligibility would be the year in which you turn 17, so junior year for a normal/young high schooler.
Let’s be real. Levi is definitely young for his age but if he was eligible for Cadets. He would of wrestled them. He is very good but doesn’t have a world medal yet, he isn’t going to just wrestle up.
Isn’t Shapiro still in HS? He should definitely be the number one recruit. Hell who is ranked above him?
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