Penn State wins Southern Scuffle with five individual champs

Penn. State's Zain Retherford, left, wrestles North Carolina's Evan Henderson during their Southern Scuffle college wrestling tournament 149 lb championship bout at McKenzie Arena on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2016, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Penn. State's Zain Retherford, left, wrestles North Carolina's Evan Henderson during their Southern Scuffle college wrestling tournament 149 lb championship bout at McKenzie Arena on Saturday, Jan. 2, 2016, in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Penn State University had five of its six finalists in the 10 weight classes in the Southern Scuffle win championships Saturday at McKenzie Arena and for the sixth consecutive year was the team champion.

The Nittany Lions won last year despite having no individual win a title.

"Last year we won with a lot of bonus points," Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said. "We had five champions this year in a tough tournament with a lot of great competition here."

Saturday's crowd in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga facility totaled 3,172, which marked the third consecutive year the Scuffle has drawn more than 3,000 on the second day of competition.

"Fabulous event," UTC coach Heath Eslinger said. "I think it's the best ever we've put on since it's been here.

"We had good attendance and great wrestling, which makes for a great atmosphere."

Top-ranked Penn State entered the second day of competition with a 158.5-146 lead over second-ranked and second-place Oklahoma State, which had four wrestlers in championship finals. PSU ended up stretching the final margin over the Cowboys to 183-158.

"Any time you get six guys in the finals you have a pretty good chance of winning the tournament," Sanderson said. "Our guys did well. The quarters and the semis is where you get big points.

"You always want to wrestle well. This kind of tournament is a good indicator of how well you may do in an NCAA championship tournament. You want to finish strong, too, and we did that."

Penn State's champions included 125-pounder Nico Megaludis, who decisioned Oklahoma State's Eddie Kilmara in the first championship match. The others were Zain Retherford (149), Jason Nolf (157), Bo Nickal (174) and Morgan McIntosh (197). Jordan Conaway was a runner-up to Cornell's Nahshon Garrett at 133.

The host Mocs finished 20th with 31.5 points. Fourth-place finisher Jared Johnson (285) was their highest finisher.

"I don't think it was a great performance by us," Eslinger said. "A good performance will get you a bad tournament because it's that tough. Heavyweight Jared Johnson had a great performance - a stellar performance. That's why he was wrestling (for third place)."

Rounding out the tournament's top five teams were Lehigh at 104.5, Cornell at 98.5 and North Carolina at 97.5.

Oklahoma State had three individual winners: Dean Heil (141), Alex Dieringer (165) and Austin Marsden (285). The tournament's other champion was Cornell's Gabriel Dean at 184.

Contact Kelley Smiddie at sports@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/KelleySmiddie.

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