NCAA Wrestling Championships -- Live Updates (Session 1)

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Coming live from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, this is the NCAA Wrestling Championships. I’m Zach Klitzman and I’ll be providing updates through Saturday, as eight Penn wrestlers look to advance in the national tournament. 330 wrestlers are competing from now until the Finals Saturday evening, representing 74 schools.

Interestingly, the Penn squad has switched uniforms. Instead of going with the solid blue singlets they’ve used throughout the season, they’ve switched up to solid red ones. I’ve yet to had a chance to interview any players or coach Zeke Jones about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re special NCAA-only singlets.

(Before I get in much farther, let me say that the internet is spotty at best here in the St. Louis Blues' home stadium, so apologies there).

It's roughly 1:30 Central time, and three Penn wrestlers have already competed in the opening round. Ninth-seeded sophomore Rollie Peterkin (125 pounds) dominated his first round opponent, unseeded Jonathan Bittinger of Duquesne, winning with a technical fall 17-1.

However, the second Penn match of the day was less favorable for the Quakers. Junior Rick Rappo (141) faced #3-seed, Kellen Russell of Michigan. The bout went scoreless through two periods, although Rappo forced some injury time in the first when Russell went down with a head injury. But the 25-5 freshman bounced back from the injury, and scored a quick takedown 10 seconds into the third. Russell held on, scoring another takedown and escape, advancing with the 5-0 decision. However, despite the close score, and the zero-zero tie throughout the first two periods, Russell pretty much dominated the match, as Rappo was on bottom throughout most of the bout. The third bout went similar to Rappo's. Junior captain Cesar Grajales (149) faced a high seed, Jordan Burroughs, the fourth-seed from Nebraska. And just like Rappo's it was scoreless after the first period. However Burroughs drew first blood, earning an escape point with :45 seconds to go in the second. However, just six seconds into the third, Grajales tied it up with an escape of his own. But there's a reason why Burroughs is seeded and Grajales is not. With just under 25 seconds, Grajales had the Cornhusker in a hold, but Burroughs escaped, and then got the reversal, earning three points. With so little time left, Grajales couldn't earn any points, losing the bout 4-1.

I'll stop for now, as there are no Penn wrestlers at 157 pounds. The next Penn wrestler is 165-pounder Zack Shanaman.

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First, I should add that at one point the jumbotron revealed team scores. At that point Penn was in 22nd with 3.5, but that was before Shanaman's upset. (last year the Quakers came in 25 with 28 points).

After the break for the 157 weightclass, I'm back. The second half started with two bouts against ranked Oklahoma State wrestlers. First was junior Shanaman going up against the seventh-seed, Jake Dieffenbach. Dieffenbach had a lead of 4-2 right before the second period was to end, but Shanaman tied it up at the buzzer with a takedown. Finally, with an escape point just fifteen seconds in, Shanaman took the lead. He then played steady defense, holding on for the 5-4 upset win.

While the Shanaman win was the highlight for the team so far, the second Penn-OSU matchup was not as favorable to the Quakers. Redshirt Freshman Scott Giffin (174) faced ninth seed, Brendan Mason of OSU, but the match was more similar to Rappo's then Shanamans. Mason earned a quick takedown n in 1st, and with an escape and another takedown again, he earned a 5-0 win to even the heads up records of Penn and Oklahoma state wrestlers.

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The next bout, though not against a Cowboy wrestler, was against a Big 12, seeded wrestler. Senior captain Lior Zamir (184) (who was incorrectly called a junior over the PA system) faced top-seed Jake Varner of Iowa State. Varner was 25-0 on the season and was runner-up at the 2007 NCAA Championships. during which he defeated Zamir, 5-0, in the first round of the NCAA Championships. And this year it wasn't any different.

With :47 left in the first, Varner earned a takedown. and while the scoreless second kept the match close heading into the third, Varner got both a escape around 1:20 and a takedown at 1:01. In the end it was yet another 5-0 shutout loss for Penn.

The next match saw Thomas Shovlin (197) face off against Patrick Bond of Illinois, the 9 seed. It was scoreless in first and second, but just 12 seconds into the third Bond got an escape. However, an escape from Shovlin tied it up. And with both wrestlers not willing to give up any points, we got our first Sudden Victory match for Penn. But Bond got a takedown with just eight seconds left, even though he was dangerously close to being out of the circle. So Bond advanced with a 3-1 win.

Finally in heavyweight there was Trey Mclean against Jared Rosholt, the number five seed from Oklahoma State. And Rosholt just dominated. He got a quick takedown in first minute, and followed that up with a near fall three. And with just one second left in first, he earned the fall against the junior from Penn. With the win OSU is now 2-1 against the Quakers.

Also, they announced the attendance for session one as 15, 513 which is higher than the average attendance from last year's meet.

That's it for the first sesssion. The second round will commence at 6:30, so look for more updates then. I'm off to enjoy the comp dinner, as well as watch some sweet NCAA tournament basketball games.