Penn State wrestling All-American Josh Barr could return to action this weekend, report says
Penn State All-American Josh Barr could make his 2025-2026 season debut this weekend at the Collegiate Wrestling Duals, head coach Cael Sanderson told reporters on Monday in State College.
“He’s making the trip this week,” Sanderson said, per Black Shoe Diaries.
Barr hurt his ribs at the U23 World Championships in late October. That sidelined him for the start of his third season in State College. In his place, redshirt freshman Connor Mirasola is now 6-1 after losing last weekend to Wyoming’s top-five 197-pounder Joey Novak. It’s not immediately clear if Barr and Mirasoal might split matches as Penn State takes on North Dakota State at 5 p.m. ET on Dec. 20 before battling Stanford at 7 p.m. ET on FLO. But it’s a possibility if Barr does indeed return.
“We just don’t have a lot of matches, so we’re trying to get matches right now,” Sanderson said on Monday, per BSD. “We’re trying to get our match count up. We don’t really play around a lot with that. We generally just wrestle our best team that’s ready to go. That’s just kind of been the standard wherever and whenever we wrestle.”
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More: How close is Penn State wrestling to setting a new Division I dual meet winning streak record?: Wyoming takeaways
In other injury news, it’s not as clear if Aaron Nagao will be able to return this week. Freshman Nate Desmond bumped up from 125 and won at 141 for Penn State at Wyoming. He can wrestle four more dates this season before burning his redshirt. The Lions still look likely to bide time between Demsond and Cael Nasdeo while waiting for Nagao to return over pulling junior Braeden Davis’ redshirt.
“He has a big frame,” Sanderson said of Desmond, per BSD. “He could bulk up in the future if he wanted to. We just have several guys that we are confident in, obviously at 141 [lbs]. It was a good opportunity to give him that match on the road in front of a full house. You want to see how guys do, just give him that opportunity for training purposes and preparation. He did a nice job. He was going up a couple weight classes from where he was maybe a month ago, but he obviously responded well, and we’re excited.