After last night's semifinals, Penn State stands alone in seventh place overall, while only Aaron Anspach remains in the hunt for an individual national title, as junior Phil Davis fell to Iowa State's Kurt Backes.
Anspach, the Nittany Lions' senior heavyweight, will head into tonight’s heavyweight title bout with Minnesota's Cole Konrad. So far this season, Konrad holds a 2-0 record over Penn State’s senior co-captain, with the latter victory coming from a pinfall in the heavyweight title match of the Big Ten tournament.
Anspach earned the decision against Central Michigan's Bubba Gritter, the tournament's No. 3 seed, by a score of 5-3 last night.
Off to a quick start in the match, Anspach scored a takedown after a little more than a minute to go up 2-0. Gritter, however, would escape before the end of the first period, earning a point to close the gap to 2-1.
In the second period, Gritter chose to start down and scored another escape to tie the match at two. Neither wrestler would score again before the start of the third and final period.
Anspach chose down to begin the third and earned another point with a quick escape, re-establishing his lead -- one he would not relinquish for the remainder of the match. With less than a minute remaining, Anspach scored one more takedown to push the score to 5-2. Gritter would escape one more time, but the point would not be enough to overcome Anspach's lead.
Last year, Davis made it to the finals of 197 pounds at the national tournament and went home as runner-up. This year, the junior three-time All-American managed only fifth place, as a loss in last night's semifinals to Backes and a loss in today's consolation semifinals to Ohio State's J.D. Bergman sent him into the fifth and sixth place match.
He faced Cornell's Jerry Rinaldi for the second time this tournament and seemingly took his frustrations out on the Big Red wrestler to the tune of an 8-4 decision and a fifth place finish.
Sophomore Jake Strayer also placed for the Lions today, taking home seventh place in a 133-pound consolation bout. Strayer pinned Andrae Hernandez at the 2:48 mark.
