Penn State Wrestling Rankings: Starter Cracks Top 5

What Davis moving up means is that nine of Penn State’s starters are in the top five, including four No. 1s and four No. 2s.

WHY DAVIS MOVED

Photo by Penn State Athletics: Braeden Davis

So why did Davis move when nobody else did? It’s a good question. He does have a good resume. Although Davis does have three losses, he has some big-time wins which help his top five case. Davis has beaten Rutgers’ Dylan Shawver (No. 10), Little Rock’s Nasir Bailey (No. 6) and Ohio State’s Nic Bouzakis (No. 12). All of Davis’ losses are to quality competition, too. He lost to No. 1 Drake Ayala (Iowa), No. 2 Lucas Byrd (Illinois) and Lehigh’s Ryan Crookham, who was No. 1 before suffering a season-ending injury that took him out of national championship contention. That could be another reason Davis moved.

THE REST OF THE GUYS

Carter Starocci improves Penn State’s winning margin 26-5 with his convincing win over Iowa’s Angelo Ferrari.

For the rest of the guys, nothing changed. Luke Lilledahl is still No. 8 at 125. Beau Bartlett remains No. 1 at 141. At 149, Shayne Van Ness stayed at No. 2. At 157, No. 1 Tyler Kasak didn’t go anywhere, no did top-ranked Mitchell Mesenbrink at 165. Levi Haines, who won it all at 157 last year, is still No. 2 at 174 behind Missouri’s Keegan O’Toole. Carter Starocci is still the king at 184. Josh Barr is No. 2 at 197 and defending heavyweight champ Greg Kerkvliet is is No. 2 behind former Olympic Gold Medalist Gable Steveson of Minnesota.

The Big Ten Champions are scheduled for Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9 in Evanston, Illinois.