With no seniors and four freshmen expected to start at the Big Ten Tournament, March 3-4 in Evanston, Ill., the youth and inexperience of the Penn State wrestling team is glaring. At no portion of the lineup is that more blatantly obvious than at the lighter weights, where the Nittany Lions will start three redshirt freshmen.

Redshirt sophomore Nate Parker was expected to start at 141 pounds after being reinstated from a suspension last week, but he apparently broke the agreement he had with Penn State wrestling coach Troy Sunderland.

With Parker out of the lineup, The Lions will be forced to look towards redshirt freshman Eric Narkiewicz to start at 141 pounds. Narkiewicz has been the starter since the Northwestern match, the first Parker missed due to his original suspension. He has struggled in his time as a starter, finishing 0-8, in dual meets, and going 0-6 in the Big Ten.

"I'm just going to have to be ready," Narkiewicz said. "I get to go in there with nobody expecting me to do anything, so I'll have a lot less pressure than in a dual meet. I'm just going to wrestle like I've got nothing to lose."

Narkiewicz will enter the tournament unseeded, and will need to battle through a weight class with seven ranked wrestlers to survive for nationals.

The Lions do show a bit more promise at 125 and 133 pounds.

At 133, Marat Tomaev was forced to scale down from 141 pounds to fill in for the injured Scott Moore. Tomaev stepped up in a big way in his first year as a starter, finishing 14-12, with big wins over No. 6 ranked 133-pounder Roman Fleszar of Hofstra, No. 20 Jeff Ratliff of Ohio State and No. 8 Foley Dowd from Michigan.

Tomaev will be seeded eighth, but his impressive victories should at least raise his confidence level going against an extremely tough field at 133 pounds, which includes seven ranked wrestlers, six in the top ten, and No. 1 ranked Eric Juergens from Iowa.

"It does help my confidence a little," Tomaev said.

"Knowing that I can beat guys like Dowd helps, but it still doesn't mean anything. I think I can compete with anybody. I feel like I've been working as hard as anybody else out there."

Redshirt freshman Josh Moore's season has been one of ups and downs. He finished the year 25-13, leading the team in wins, but his dual meet season was affected by a shoulder injury that kept him out of five dual meets.

Moore finished 7-8 in duals, after starting the year 5-0.

He won just one match during Penn State's Big Ten schedule, but it was a big one, a 3-1 victory over No. 9 ranked A.J. Grant of Michigan.

"I think that win really showed me that I could hang with the top guys," Moore said. "It helped my confidence out a lot because I had been struggling, and I think it shows I'm wrestling better with the shoulder."

Moore will be also be facing a tough field at 125 pounds, where he will begin the tournament unseeded.

Nine of the Big Ten's wrestlers at that same weight are ranked. Four of them are in the top ten including No. 2 Jody Strittmatter from Iowa and No. 3 Leroy Vega from Minnesota.

Sunderland knows the youth of this bunch can be a factor in an intense tournament like Big Tens.

He addressed the team, and told the younger players to talk to the veterans who had been there.

"I think it all comes back to something (redshirt sophomore) Mark Becks said," Sunderland said.

"He said went to the tournament nervous, and his tournament was over before he had even realized it started. We have to make them realize that as soon as the whistle blows, they have to go out and wrestle as hard as they can, and they have to know that every point matters. With a season like we had with all of these bumps in the road, everything has to be working for us to succeed."