"We're going to monitor him for soreness and swelling the next couple of days to see how long it will be before he can wrestle again," Penn State coach Troy Sunderland said. "He's in quite a bit of pain."
The matchup between Parker and Tomaev was one of the most anticipated of the day. Both sat out last season -- Tomaev with the knee injury and Parker because of rape charges that have since been dropped. Tomaev had to get back to the final by defeating redshirt freshman Eric Narkiewicz after losing 4-3 in his first match against Parker.
In that match, the two wrestlers cracked heads, and Tomaev received a gash on his forehead that bled through the bandage he was given and forced a number of play stoppages to clean up the mat.
Both grapplers looked impressive throughout the day. Tomaev won both of his other matches by major decision, and Parker won his only other match in the same fashion.
Freshman James Woodall put together one of the day's most impressive performances, winning the 157-pound wrestle-off, defeating freshman Aaron Wright by decision 10-3 in the final. He will likely have to face redshirt freshman Jeremy Reitz again. Reitz injured cartilage in his second round match against Woodall, and lost by a majority decision of 19-7.
"James has improved quite a bit since the first time I worked with him," Sunderland said. "He was definitely on today, he really controlled his matches."
Sophomore Scott Moore and his brother Josh, a redshirt freshman transfer from Edinboro, won the 125-pound and 133-pound wrestle-offs. Scott, ranked 11th at his weight in the preseason Amateur Wrestling News poll defeated redshirt freshman Nate Pozniak twice by fall, the first time in 1:48, the second in 1:00. Josh defeated redshirt sophomore Justin Kast twice by decision, 8-2 and 2-0.
Sophomore Nate Wachter, who qualified for NCAA's at 157 pounds last season won the wrestle-off at the 149-pound division, outscoring John Krulock in a 7-3 decision.
Sophomore Mark Becks won the 174-pound division, winning 7-4 and 8-3 decisions over freshman Eric Bradley, and co-captain Jeff Knupp, a redshirt junior, won the 184-pound wrestle-off with an 8-1 decision over Jon Sauve.
Freshman Pat Cummins won the heavyweight wrestle-off winning 5-3 and 6-1 decisions over freshman Adrian Rivera, but will face another challenge in the wrestling room when redshirt junior Kevin Shippos returns from a slight knee injury, which should be soon.
The 165-pound and 197-pound divisions are still in limbo for the Lions. Sophomore Doc Vecchio and freshman Dan Waters were set for the final at 165-pounds, but a shoulder problem kept Waters from competing. Whoever wins that will also have to deal with senior Andrew Butville, who sat out the wrestle-offs with a pulled hamstring.
Redshirt junior Pete Mielnik and redshirt sophomore Ryan Cummins were even in the two matches in which they faced each other during the tournament, and will later finish the wrestle-off in the wrestling room.
Sunderland was pleased with what he saw, but acknowledged that a lot of work is still necessary.
"I was mostly happy with everyone's technique, but we need to work on some things there," he said. "I think we looked well conditioned, and I was pleased with the performance of our freshmen, but we still need to work on some things. We have a long way to go to be on top of our game."
