Penn State coach Troy Sunderland said having the match early at Indiana should help the team prepare for the upcoming championships.
"I think just being a little bit more comfortable with the surroundings. Just knowing where the gym is, where the wrestling room is, can help us down the road," Sunderland said.
This weekend's dual features three matchups of ranked wrestlers. Penn State is favored at 133 where No. 9 Jake Strayer will meet No. 18 Andrae Hernandez, while the Hoosiers are favorites at 157 where No. 13 Nathan Galloway faces No. 8 Brandon Becker.
The most intriguing match of the night is one of Penn State's All-Americans, No. 6 Phil Davis, pitted against No. 8 Brady Richardson in a battle of top-10 wrestlers at 197. It will be Davis' first matchup against a nationally ranked wrestler since Jan. 8, when he defeated No. 9 Jerry Rinaldi of Cornell by a score of 3-0.
Phil Bomberger will make the trip and may wrestle in place of James Yonushonis this weekend in order to give Bomberger more experience.
Penn State is coming off a weekend of mixed emotions. After defeating Iowa for the first time in eight matchups, the Lions went on to lose a heartbreaker to Iowa State that had Sunderland scratching his head.
"When we came back, we had a good talk. It's disappointing to get a loss when you have five kids win and five kids lose. It puts a negative, somber note on the weekend," Sunderland said. "We're a good team, and we didn't wrestle as well as we should have. We need to wrestle with a sense of urgency and make the small adjustments."
The wrestler who has been asked to make the most major adjustments this year is true freshman David Erwin. After starting out the year on fire, Erwin has started to hit a bit of a freshman skid. Although he has been pinned in two of the last three matches, Sunderland said he has not pushed the panic button on his youngster at 165.
"It's not like he's not at the level he needs to be to compete, he's just relaxing in some situations," Sunderland said. "You like the fact that he's confident and feels he can beat anyone in any position. But when he gets in trouble, though, he needs to learn to fight to get out of the situation he's in."
Sunderland said freshmen often become relaxed and make the mistake of relying too much on their scrambling ability coming out of high school, because their opponents are not as skilled.
Sunderland is expecting Erwin to bounce back well this weekend, in part because he has done a better job managing his weight. He said the assistants have assured him that Erwin is still mentally at the top of his game and is ready to battle with anyone.
"I think that's the other adjustment as a freshman, you have a tough match and you get up for that match and then the next three or four matches you don't have that caliber of competition," Sunderland said. "In college, any match you step on the match you, always need to be ready to go."
