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STATE COLLEGE -- When the second-ranked Penn State wrestling team takes the mat on Monday at the Collegiate Wrestling Duals, the Nittany Lions should do so somewhat unburdened.
The team expects to be healthy after being ravaged by an illness that sent three waves through the team and wreaked havoc with the lineup in its last two dual meets. And, it will be doing so having completed all of its academic work for the fall semester.
"I think we're in a pretty good spot. I think we should have most everybody in our lineup this coming weekend," said assistant coach Casey Cunningham earlier this week during the team's media availability on Zoom.
"For the most part, I think everybody will be ready to go. Yeah, we went through a bad couple of weeks of pretty bad flu and everything else that was going around."
Penn State is scheduled to take on Northern Iowa at 7 p.m. and No. 11 Cornell at 9 p.m. on Monday in Niceville, Fla. The Nittany Lions will most likely face either Virginia Tech or Arizona State the following day.
"They're both solid teams. Obviously, Northern Iowa always has guys that wrestle really hard. They're well coached. We're gonna see a guy at 184 (No. 4 Parker Keckeisen) who took third in the country last year," Cunningham said.
"Everybody knows Cornell has a great team as well. So, we're gonna have a lot of great matchups with those guys. I'm just excited to see our guys wrestle guys of that caliber right now."
In addition to Keckeisen, the Panthers count six other ranked wrestlers in their lineup -- No. 10 Brody Teske (the former Nittany Lion, 125), No. 31 Kyle Biscoglia (133), No. 26 Cael Happel (141), No. 23 Austin Yant (165), No. 27 Lance Runyon (174) and No. 21 Carter Isley (285).
The Big Red will trot out eight ranked wrestlers: No. 5 Vito Arujau (133), No. 1 Yianni Diakomihalis (149), No. 25 Colton Yapoujian (157), No. 9 Julian Ramirez (165), No. 12 Chris Foca (174), No. 15 Jonathan Loew (184), No. 19 Jacob Cardenas (197) and No. 18 Lewis Fernandes (285).
In addition to the usual frontline starters -- No.1 Roman Bravo-Young (133), No. 1 Nick Lee (141), No. 22 Beau Bartlett (149), No. 26 Creighton Edsell (165), No. 1 Carter Starocci (174), No. 1 Aaron Brooks (184), No. 4 Max Dean (197) and No. 4 Greg Kerkvliet (285) -- Penn State might wrestle several guys at its two unsettled weights, 125 and 157.
"I think that's what will happen. We'll have a couple guys at both of those weights. You might see a couple different guys wrestle in those duals. We're trying to figure out who will be our guy going forward," Cunningham said.
So far, it's been Baylor Shunk and Jake Campbell at 125 and Terrell Barraclough and Tony Negron at 157. Don't be surprised to see a brand new face at 125.
For weeks now, message boards have been buzzing about and other outlets have reported that Drew Hildebrandt will join the Penn State roster for spring semester. He can be found on the official university directory as a World Campus student.
The team's official stance this week was it couldn't talk about any potential additions to the roster until fall semester was over. It will be officially over by the time the whistle blows to start action on Monday.
Hildebrandt, the younger brother of Olympic bronze medalist Sara Hildebrandt, was an All-American for Central Michigan, where he compiled a 105-41 record, including 44-5 the last two seasons. He placed fourth at last year's NCAA championships.
Penn State will be
represented at
Southern Scuffle
Once a staple of the Nittany Lions' New Year's Day plans, the Southern Scuffle has fallen off Penn State's schedule in recent years.
Cunningham said that the team may return in the future, but this year it didn't fit into the schedule. Several Nittany Lions will be in attendance this year, however. He said that most likely those wrestlers will be redshirts and others from contested weights.
"I think (freshman Alex) Facundo will be there. I'm not sure about (freshman Shayne) Van Ness," Cunningham said.
"We'll have a couple of our redshirts there and then some of our guys that we want to get some more matches in. Maybe we'll have somebody at 157, 125, 197, some of those weights where we've got some guys battling things out. We'll have a pretty good squad down there, maybe eight or nine guys."