Fools gold

No. 5 Wrestlers unearth No. 3 Golden Gophers

Penn State wrestling coach John Fritz said his Nittany Lions would have to perform better than they had all season to beat Minnesota on Friday night.

They did.

No. 5 Penn State once again jolted the college wrestling world with a resounding 21-13 upset of the No. 3 Golden Gophers before 5,203 fans at The Bryce Jordan Center.

The Lions, who stunned No. 2 Iowa in Iowa City on Jan. 3, returned to their familiar Rec Hall venue Sunday afternoon and suffered no letdown in a 36-3 annihilation of Clarion.

Fritz said it was quite a weekend for his wrestlers.

"On Friday night I could feel the electricity and the charge at The Bryce Jordan Center, and I was worried that there would be a letdown today," Fritz said after Penn State's lopsided win Sunday. "It's hard to keep your emotion up and keep yourself going, but I feel really good that the guys did that."

Emotion wasn't hard to come by against Minnesota (15-2, 3-2 Big Ten). From the first bout to the last, the Lions (14-3, 6-1) were ready to rumble.

Jeremy Hunter, ranked No. 7 at 118, got the home crowd buzzing with a pin of the Gophers' Brett Lawrence in six minutes and six seconds. Then the Lions' No. 7 126-pounder, Jason Betz, posted a 4-2 decision against Bart Golyer in his return to the mat after a month-long hiatus.

Penn State's No. 19 Biff Walizer dropped a tough 2-1 decision to No. 5 Troy Marr at 134, but Jamarr Billman and Clint Musser picked up the slack in the following two matches.

Billman, ranked No. 7 at 142, beat the Gophers' No. 3 Jason Davids 9-3 in an electrifying bout that got the crowd on its feet. The third-ranked Musser followed it up with a 3-1 win over top-ranked and previously undefeated Chad Kraft at 150 to give the Lions an unexpected 15-3 cushion.

"I think the guys kind of took charge right away," Fritz said. "Especially guys like Jeremy Hunter, who got off to a slow start and still got a pin. After Hunter, Betz and (Billman and Musser), we really started to get going."

Though No. 3 John Lange lost to Minnesota's No. 10 Josh Holiday 7-2 at 158, Penn State co-captains Glenn Pritzlaff and Rob Neidlinger weren't about to relinquish the lead the lowerweights had built them.

Pritzlaff, ranked No. 8, decisioned No. 5 Zac Taylor 7-2 at 167. Then Neidlinger, faced with the opportunity to make the Lion win official, capped things off with a narrow 4-3 win over No. 7 Brandon Eggum.

Upset complete.

"It just feels really good to win," Neidlinger said. "They beat us three times last year, so it's nice to get a dual-meet win against them this year. It feels really good."

Minnesota coach J Robinson was not a happy man after the defeat.

Robinson said his Gophers, dubbed by most as the best dual-meet team in the country, bought into their own hype and didn't live up to it.

"I think the press is making this team out to be some great team," Robinson said. "I think our guys are reading it and believing it and they haven't really done anything. We won the national dual meet tournament and that was great, but other than that, they haven't done anything."

Against Clarion (7-4-1) yesterday, Penn State kept up its furious pace.

The Lions earned six major decisions and a pin from Lange to belt the Golden Eagles by a 33-point margin, the largest since Penn State's 46-3 win over Hofstra in 1996.

Lange said the win was just business as usual.

"We just go out and wrestle," Lange said. "We don't go out there and say we have to wrestle Minnesota really hard and Clarion a little bit less hard. It doesn't matter who you're wrestling."