peanut

Rocco needs to cover his cuts

Haines with an impressive tournament.

Penn State is in four of the next five finals matches.

I believe Mendez trained with Alex Tsirtsis (or was coached by him?) for years.

Tough loss for Bartlett. He took the offensive risks and seemed to have had it won. Ugh. Congrats to Mendez.

There is indeed a good argument for Fix being the best non-champ. This year, of course, Vito is the reigning world champ. And Fix won a world silver in 2021.

Both Fix and Vito are super good, but today Vito's the better wrestler.

Starocci’s message before the finals “This game is a cut throat business. So that’s why I came into this game a boss. Bouta get my fourth natty daddy like one too. I will remain ruthless and piss on this kids graveyard tonight. Remember this is chess, not checkers ;)” Sounds serious.

PSU’s true freshman, recently undersized backup places third after dropping his first match. Wow!

Starocci- “Forgot About Dre”

When you create a new topic there should be an option for a poll. On my phone so screenshots are too hard ATM. It’s a bit confusing because after you make a poll you then have to make a standard post.

What will Starocci be doing next year?

Kasak and Berge into third place matches after first round losses.

Here are some top performers so far in terms of individual scoring: 197- Brooks- 23 (tech - fall - fall - tech) 157- Haines- 22 (tech - tech - MD - fall) 184- Keck- 21 (MD - tech - tech- MD) 184- Plott- 20.5 (tech - MD - MD - MD) 141- Bartlett- 20 (dec - fall - fall - dec) 197- Hidlay- 20 (tech - tech- MD - dec) 133- Arujau- 20 (MD - MD - MD - MD) 141- Mendez- 19.5 (tech- fall- dec - dec) 165- Mesenbrink - 19.5 (tech - MD - dec - MD)

The HS class of 2021 was hugely impacted by COVID. Everything shut down in the spring of their junior years, and then they didn't have normal senior years. Now, when you look at the AAs, you can see that wrestlers from the class of 2021 seem oddly absent. Per WrestlingNomad, AAs by HS graduation year break down like this: 2017- 4 2018- 17 2019- 22 2020-11 2021- 5 2022- 15 2023- 6 Somehow there are fewer third year wrestlers than first year wrestlers. And the second biggest cohort is sixth year wrestlers!

They’re both great wrestlers — both champs — and they are even. And it was super fun for fans to watch.

I thought Vito and Fix were both part of the HS class of 2017 — only difference is that this is Vito’s fourth NCAA tournament and Fix’s fifth. I think Fix is somehow a little older, too. Interestingly, both are world medalists. That doesn’t happen every day in the NCAA finals.

Vito and Brooks looked most impressive to me, based on vibes. Starocci would’ve been right there if not for his injury. Even so, he took out two former champs back to back.

Interestingly, Fix has a world silver — which IMO is more impressive than an NCAA title.

Kasak (149) and Berge (184) both lost in the first round, but are now guaranteed to place 3-6. Also, Volk (125), Jordan (125), and Kinner (149) lost in the first round, but are now guaranteed to place 7-8. Super tough.

Looks like they clinched the team title already. And congrats to those of you who legally bet on Penn State!

Griffith is a great wrestler, but his match with Starocci shows why a step out rule would be a good idea.

Maybe they are? Or maybe it’s part of sports psychology and we can’t expect them to disassociate from them competition mentality so quickly.