Good, better, best: wrestlers show attitude with wins

LOCK HAVEN -- Jamarr Billman raced off the mat, jettisoned his headgear and punched the curtain covering the visitor's dressing room at Lehigh's Stabler Arena.

The way the Nittany Lions' 142 pounder reacted, you'd have thought he lost.

Billman, however, had just landed a third-period takedown to beat the Mountain Hawks' Ryan Bernholz 3-2 in Penn State's routine 25-12 victory at Lehigh on Friday.

So why the harsh reaction?

Billman's attitude is the kind being molded by Lion coach John Fritz these days -- even when you're good, you can still get better.

Maybe that's why No. 3 Penn State (18-3) closed out its dual-meet season in such grand fashion. A day after the win over the No. 18 Mountain Hawks (11-9), the Lions traveled to No. 16 Lock Haven (15-4-1) and gutted the Bald Eagles 27-10 in both teams' finale.

As the score indicated, Fritz was more pleased with his team's effort in the second of the Lions' two weekend tests.

"We felt much better about the way they wrestled tonight as opposed to last night," Fritz said after the win at Thomas Field House on Saturday. "We were a little bit sluggish last night. I was very concerned coming in here tonight. I knew we had to wrestle better than last night. There was more pop tonight, there was more aggressiveness on our side."

As happened against Lehigh, 118 pounder Jeremy Hunter provided the pop early on for the Lions.

Hunter, who pinned the Mountain Hawks' Mike Sferra in five minutes and 36 seconds, wasn't interested in dilly-dallying against the Bald Eagles, either.

Hunter notched his second pin is as many nights with a fall of Lock Haven's Dave Emili with 10 seconds left in the third period.

Jason Betz wasn't as fortunate is his second match of the weekend at 126. After a ridiculous 20-second pin of James Hamfeldt against Lehigh, Betz lost 5-4 in a 30-second rideout to the Bald Eagles' star Terry Showalter.

After Biff Walizer's 5-1 win against former high school teammate Scott Bair at 134 and Billman's 11-6 rematch win against Brent Conly, Clint Musser made it official -- he's the hottest 150 pounder in the country.

Musser, who avenged Lehigh's Chris Ayres 6-3 after Ayres beat him in the Mat Town Tournament on Nov. 29, major decisioned Lock Haven's Mack Rohaly 14-5 for his 21st consecutive victory.

By then, the meet was all but decided. After Dana Weber, filling in for the injured John Lange at 158, lost 5-3 to Neil Barnes, Glenn Pritzlaff and Rob Neidlinger turned in impressive wins.

Pritzlaff tech falled Mike Schrader 17-2 with one tick left in the match while Neidlinger came from a 3-1 deficit to upset Dave Murray 6-4.

The hunt for a 190 pounder continued for Fritz in the two upperweights.

Ross Thatcher, still competing with Brett Calabretta for the starting job, beat the Bald Eagles' Kenny Haines 8-7 in overtime in the meet's most thrilling bout. Thatcher took Haines down at the buzzer to send the match into the extra period before Haines was called for fleeing the mat.

Calabretta, meanwhile, filled in for injured heavyweights Mark Janus and Pete Mielnik to lose a 10-2 major decision to the bigger Ricky Krieger. It didn't matter, though, as the meet was already history.

"To be frank, they're just a much better team at this point," Lock Haven coach Carl Poff said. "Overall, I'm pleased with our fight. Penn State's a very good team and they showed it tonight."