Highlights:
Happy with the effort in the Michigan match. Energy should be outstanding at BJC Friday night. A lot of great matchups. Ironhead pointed out that during Cael's tenure, Penn State wrestlers have beaten former national champions seven times, and Nico will have a chance to make it eight.
Cael said the 125 match will be a big match for Nico, a match of different styles. Nico with flexibility and hustle; Tomasello with power and explosiveness.
On McCutcheon: "He'll wrestle Friday. He's fine. Not favoring the knee in any way." Cael said "I wrestled him today, and he feels fine."
On Nevills: "I also wrestled Nevills, and he feels fine too. I had to play some 'old man' tricks to keep it close." Cael said Nevills is cleared to wrestle, and that he talked to Nevills' dad today. Said they'll pray about the course forward from here.
Cael had nice words for Jan Johnson: "Jan did this just to help out the team. He didn't have a dream to do this or anything, or he'd have been out here in the first place." Said Jan's a "good, solid athlete" who showed a little more fight the past two matches. "I went back and forth about throwing him out there against Coon" and was proud of the way he continued to fight out there. He said he talked to Jan today, that Jan is having fun, and he's looking forward to the opportunity this Friday.
A little about recruiting in response to a question from a Lehigh Valley individual: We'll go anywhere to recruit the best people. Lucky to have a lot of good wrestlers relatively close to us. But we'll go where we have to. But a lot of the best kids call us, too. We recruited Nevills from California and Nickal from Texas, "but they recruited us, too."
Said increasing parity is good for the sport, singling out NC State, Virginia Tech and Cornell, with Rob Koll doing a great job building that program into a contender for the national championship.
SR/BHF
Happy with the effort in the Michigan match. Energy should be outstanding at BJC Friday night. A lot of great matchups. Ironhead pointed out that during Cael's tenure, Penn State wrestlers have beaten former national champions seven times, and Nico will have a chance to make it eight.
Cael said the 125 match will be a big match for Nico, a match of different styles. Nico with flexibility and hustle; Tomasello with power and explosiveness.
On McCutcheon: "He'll wrestle Friday. He's fine. Not favoring the knee in any way." Cael said "I wrestled him today, and he feels fine."
On Nevills: "I also wrestled Nevills, and he feels fine too. I had to play some 'old man' tricks to keep it close." Cael said Nevills is cleared to wrestle, and that he talked to Nevills' dad today. Said they'll pray about the course forward from here.
Cael had nice words for Jan Johnson: "Jan did this just to help out the team. He didn't have a dream to do this or anything, or he'd have been out here in the first place." Said Jan's a "good, solid athlete" who showed a little more fight the past two matches. "I went back and forth about throwing him out there against Coon" and was proud of the way he continued to fight out there. He said he talked to Jan today, that Jan is having fun, and he's looking forward to the opportunity this Friday.
A little about recruiting in response to a question from a Lehigh Valley individual: We'll go anywhere to recruit the best people. Lucky to have a lot of good wrestlers relatively close to us. But we'll go where we have to. But a lot of the best kids call us, too. We recruited Nevills from California and Nickal from Texas, "but they recruited us, too."
Said increasing parity is good for the sport, singling out NC State, Virginia Tech and Cornell, with Rob Koll doing a great job building that program into a contender for the national championship.
SR/BHF
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