McCoy head of class at Big Tens 2nd time

By JONATHAN BOMBULIE
Collegian Sports Writer

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- In a dual-meet season filled with losses, Kerry McCoy's wins -- 34 of them -- became little more then footnotes.

At the Big Ten Wrestling Championships last weekend, the Lion became the headliner.

McCoy cruised to his second consecutive conference title, easily handling No. 6 Billy Pierce 6-1 in the finals. At the tournamnet's conclusion, the Big Ten coaches lauded McCoy with outstanding-wrestler-of-the-tournament honors.

"The heavyweight weight class has so many tough guys in the Big Ten," McCoy said. "I don't want to lose. I want to win every match. To win here is another notch I can put in my belt to gear me up for (NCAAs in) Iowa."

The Lions brought home another Big Ten title when redshirt junior John Hughes took the 142-pound crown, defeating Iowa's Bill Zadick, 6-4 in overtime. Hughes appeared businesslike as he took the Hawkeye junior down with 42 seconds left in the extra period.

"You have stepping stones throughout the year," Hughes said. "Midlands is one, Big Tens is another. You want to peak at nationals."

At 126, Sanshiro Abe made his way to the finals before falling 6-1 to Iowa's Jeff McGinness. The redshirt junior from Tokyo was unable to mount much offense against the No. 1 McGinness.

"I didn't finish my shots," Abe said. "I made some mistakes in the finals. When I did something, he reacted and countered me. His defense is tough."

Lion freshman Glenn Pritzlaff was the fourth and final Penn State qualifier for NCAAs. He placed sixth at 158 pounds. Pritzlaff lost in the second round to eventual champion Dan Wirnsberger of Michigan State before wrestling back to the fifth-place match. There he lost to Iowa's Daryl Weber, 15-5.

With Hughes and McCoy capturing titles, Penn State was the only school other than Iowa to take multiple crowns. In the overall team standings, however, Penn State finished sixth with 65.5 points.

"We'd like to have some other guys, like Clint (Musser) there," Coach John Fritz said. "But I understand that when you have extra freshmen in there, things can go for you or against you."

As expected, Iowa blew out the competition, finishing with six champions, 10 national qualifiers -- its whole team -- and a staggering team total of 185 points. Michigan State took second (109.5) and Minnesota finished third (83).

"I was proud to see this team really wanted to capture something," Iowa Coach Dan Gable said. "They were hungry. Their coach is hungry. That's important."

Notes:

-- Freshman of the year went to Jim Johnson of Ohio State, who finished third at 134. Gable was given coach of the year honors and Lincoln McIlravy of Iowa, who took the title at 150, was named conference wrestler of the year.

-- The Lions had two other placewinners who will not advance to nationals. Redshirt sophomore Matt Hardy and senior Rob Piper took eighth at 167 and 190, respectively.

-- Four other Lions went 0-2 last weekend -- John Strittmatter (118), Musser (134), Tony Bobulinski (150) and Rob Neidlinger (177).

-- Despite a sixth-place finish at Big Tens and being unranked at the end of the dual-meet season, Penn State is No. 2 behind Iowa in the latest Amateur Wrestling News tournament rankings. Because McCoy, Hughes and Abe will be favorites to reach the finals, the Lions have the ability to rack up team points at NCAAs next weekend.