The lineup for the Penn State wrestling team's Thursday Intrasquad Dual was released Tuesday, featuring all five of the Nittany Lions' ranked wrestlers and four highly touted true freshmen.
Additionally, the match will feature two true position battles at the 133- and 141-pound weight classes. Redshirt freshmen Bryan Pearsall and Jack Chidester will face off for the spot at 133, and sophomore Colby Pisani and senior Adam Lynch will go for 141.
"It's going to be my first time wearing an actual Penn State singlet in Rec Hall, so I'm really excited about that," Pearsall said.
This will be the first time the team has held such an intrasquad match. In the past, the exhibition was called 'Wrestle-Offs,' a tournament-style event with multiple mats going at once.
This year, coach Cael Sanderson brought the dual format with him from Iowa State. The team wrestled-off at practice to its top two wrestlers at each weight over recent weeks, and the resulting pair will go head-to-head Thursday, assistant coaches Troy Letters and Casey Cunningham said.
Sanderson said he expects the winners from the intrasquad match to start the team's first dual, Nov. 13 at Lehigh. However, both Letters and Cunningham said wins by any of the true freshmen won't change the announced intentions to redshirt the whole class.
"It pretty much will set the lineup for Lehigh unless there's something out of the ordinary," Sanderson said Monday. "Usually, the intrasquad, the guy who will be there wins. It's worked out that way since I started three years ago."
However, the crown jewels of Sanderson's first recruiting class -- top-10 national recruits David Taylor, Ed Ruth and Jake Kemerer -- will all see action Thursday night, as will Luke Macchiaroli, another blue-chipper who was the 20th-ranked scholastic 215-pounder in the country.
Taylor will move up to 157 to take on Iowa State transfer Cyler Sanderson, ranked fifth nationally, while Kemerer will wrestle No. 9 Dan Vallimont at 165 and Ruth will go against J.R. Brown at 184.
Macchiaroli will lock horns with returning starter Clay Steadman at 197, and fellow true freshman Tom Reynolds will go against No. 8 Brad Pataky at 125.
Last year's 141, Frank Molinaro, will hit the mat against redshirt freshman James English at 149 in his first bout at the higher weight classification. Molinaro expressed his excitement over moving up a weight class at last week's media day, and said he doesn't expect his compact stature to affect his performance at the higher weight.
"That's usually the first thing that comes to everyone's mind, but every day in practice I wrestle Jake [Kemerer], [David] Taylor, Cyler [Sanderson], so I'm wrestling bigger guys and getting a lot more comfortable wrestling bigger weights," he said. "Now, when I go down and wrestle people that are lighter, it makes a huge difference."
