Over 300 wrestlers entered this Saturday's East Stroudsburg Open hoping to leave with a title. Going into the tournament, each knew that only 10 of them would reach that goal.
Five of those ten happen to wrestle for Penn State.
The Nittany Lions rolled in their first competition of the season, in addition to the five championships, six other wrestlers placed in their weight class.
"We talked about in practice coming into tournaments and dominating," Penn State wrestling coach Troy Sunderland said. "We expect it of ourselves and we went there and did it."
The undoubted star of the day for Penn State and the entire tournament was Josh Moore at 133 pounds. The senior All-American began his drive to a national championship by pinning his way through the tournament. In his last three matches, the quarterfinals, semifinals and final, where the competition is expected to be toughest, Moore was never on the mat for more than a minute.
Moore's win at 133 was sandwiched by two other Lion champions, Matt Smith at 125 and Matt Storniolo at 149, both first time winners.
At 125, the highly anticipated meeting between Adam Smith and Matt Smith that will decide the weight's starter, never materialized.
The wrestlers were placed on opposite sides of the bracket as Sunderland had hoped but the plans were derailed when Adam Smith fell to Dan Green of Columbia, 3-1, in the semifinals. Matt Smith beat Green 7-6 in overtime to take the title.
Storniolo's victory may have been the most promising for Penn State. Before he even reached the championship match, Storniolo had to go through Lock Haven All-American and Penn State nemesis, Mike Maney.
Maney came into the match with the number one seed at 149, a consensus top six ranking nationally. None of that mattered to Storniolo, the number four seed, as he scored an 8-4 victory.
"Matt's real hard to score on," Sunderland said. "One time it looked like Maney was going to score on him but Matt came out on top. His last three matches were against real tough kids and he showed the kind of competitor he is."
Another positive sign for the Lions came at 184 pounds. Eric Bradley, who has been out of action since late in 2000 because of back problems and never wrestled officially for Penn State, won five straight matches from his number six seed en route to the title.
Senior Pat Cummins wrapped up the Lions outstanding day with a championship at heavyweight. In the finals, Cummins won by fall over fellow Lion Josh Walker. Walker was among five others that placed for Penn State but did not win titles, including Adam Smith, Nathan Galloway at 157, Jeremy Hart at 165, James Yonushonis at 174 and Phil Davis at 197.
