Riding the high of a conference win for the first time in 63 attempts, any chance of back-to-back conference wins for Maryland wrestling was stomped early against No. 1 Penn State.
After Braxton Brown, ranked No. 15 by Intermat, squeaked out a 1-0 win in the first bout at 125 pounds, the Terps were defeated in the ensuing nine bouts of the match. Three Maryland wrestlers were pinned and two more suffered tech fall defeats. Maryland also medically forfeited the 197 bout with No. 13 Jaxon Smith missing from the lineup.
The stretch for the Terps (9-8, 1-7 Big Ten) resulted in a 44-3 loss to the Nittany Lions (15-0, 8-0 Big Ten) to close conference play.
Brown rebounds
After Purdue’s No. 3 Matt Ramos defeated No. 15 Braxton Brown to snap the redshirt freshman’s 10-match winning streak on Friday, Brown wasted no time getting back to winning ways.
Up against fellow redshirt freshman Gary Steen, both wrestlers gave up nothing in the opening period, with the biggest development being a stall warning against Steen.
Starting the second period in neutral position, Brown went on the attack but couldn’t convert. As a second stall warning was looming for Steen, Steen went in for an attack and grabbed the leg of Brown. Steen appeared to take down Brown, but the time in the period ran out and the bout stayed tied at 0-0.
[Maryland wrestling snaps 63-match conference skid in comeback win over Purdue, 19-18]
Brown began in the down position to start the final period, and quickly escaped to score the first points of the bout. With Brown in a slim lead, a takedown from Steen could have tipped the bout in his favor.
As Steen got Brown on another attack, Brown defended it well. Brown went into a split to prevent the takedown, and both wrestlers went off the mat to force a restart in neutral position. In the waning seconds, Brown was hit with a stall warning of his own, but prevented a Steen score to secure a 1-0 decision.
King Sandoval can’t get it rolling
Returning to the team just two months ago, it could take some time for King Sandoval to get readjusted with Big Ten wrestling. That was the case against the top ranked wrestler in the 133 pound weight class, No. 1 Roman Bravo-Young.
Bravo-Young got to work early. While Sandoval scored multiple points in the first period, those points were all escapes. Every time Bravo-Young would succeed in a takedown, he would allow Sandoval an escape to take him down again. After trading takedowns and escapes in the first period, Bravo-Young had a healthy 14-6 lead.
More of the same took place in the second. Bravo-Young established control with more takedowns to extend his lead to 22-10 after two, and went for a tech fall in the third.
Bravo-Young added six more points before the third period ended, and finished the bout with 14 takedowns against Sandoval. The big win secured Penn State’s first of two wins by tech fall on the day.
[Braxton Brown rising in rankings with win streak for Maryland wrestling]
Kevin Makosy still winless since return
After suffering an injury during Maryland’s win against American in the season opening quad-meet, Kevin Makosy is slowly getting back into action. In his third Big Ten appearance since returning from injury — he dropped previous bouts in Maryland’s matches against Rutgers and Purdue — Makosy was still searching for his first Big Ten win of the season.
His opponent, Donoval Ball, came out firing, scoring two takedowns in the first period and only allowing a Makosy escape. Ball continued his dominance with two more takedowns in the second after adding an escape, and took a 9-2 lead into the final frame.
Makosy earned an escape to begin the third as he looked to avoid giving up bonus points. With Ball having the riding time point secured, all he needed was another takedown for a major decision. Makosy prevented any takedown from his opponent despite an attempt from Ball in the final minute of the period.
Makosy was able to stave off any bonus points, but still fell to Ball by a 10-3 decision.
