Penn State Postpones 2nd Wrestling Match of Season
Penn State's third-ranked wrestling team will wait a little longer to begin its season.
The program announced that Sunday's scheduled home-opener against Michigan State has been postponed. In separate statements, both teams said they will work with the Big Ten on rescheduling.
Penn State is the only team in the top 10 of InterMat Wrestling's rankings that hasn't wrestled a match this season. The Lions' previously postponed their scheduled Jan. 16 opener against Rutgers after pausing workouts because of positive COVID-19 test results within the program.
Earlier this week, coach Cael Sanderson said that Penn State had resumed workouts, though an unannounced number of wrestlers were unavailable. Sanderson said he expected the team to wrestle against Michigan State but added, "we're at the mercy of the tests."
Penn State permitted wrestlers to leave State College to visit family over the holidays. Sanderson said he believes the positive test results stemmed partly from that decision.
"Yes, we’ve been set back, unfortunately," Sanderson said. "... But just the holidays, and spending that time with your family, especially this year, I think is worth a little setback. Obviously we were hoping not to get into the position that we found ourselves, but we’ll deal with it. And I don’t think anyone regrets what we did."
Penn State's next scheduled match is Jan. 30 at Northwestern. The team is supposed to wrestle a nine-match Big Ten regular season, with a pair of duals against Wisconsin and Michigan on Feb. 7. The main event is a Feb. 12 home date with No. 1 Iowa.
In order to be eligible for the postseason, wrestlers must complete at least four matches. Sanderson said he would scheduled exhibition bouts for wrestlers not competing in dual meets.
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