Penn State wrestling podcast: Assessing the Lions' season to date, Edinboro preview, and more
The final Blue-White Illustrated Wrestling Show of the regular season is live ahead of No. 1 Penn State welcoming Edinboro to Rec Hall on Sunday to close out the dual meet portion of its 2023-2024 schedule.
Host Thomas Frank Carr and reporter Greg Pickel kick off the show by looking back at the Lions’ 22-13 win over Nebraska while also providing a recap of the season to date that led head coach Cael Sanderson’s team to clinch its fourth consecutive Big Ten regular season title last weekend. From there, the pair discuss Tuesday’s news conference, during which Sanderson noted some wrestlers, including 133-pound starter Aaron Nagao, would be away from the mat for at least part of the week for recovery reasons.
“He’s doing good,” Sanderson said of Nagao. “I think we’ll have him back on the mat towards the end of the week. We just have, I’m sure every program is the same, so you don’t want to be the complaining program, but yeah, we have some guys that are sick, and we just need to give them time to get better right now. And he’s not the only one that will be out throughout a lot of the week just trying to get better.”
From there, Carr and Pickel look ahead to Edinboro. The match is at 2 p.m. Sunday in State College on BTN+. Before it, the new episode of the BWI Penn State wrestling show is available to watch in the video player above. Want to listen? Podcast links: SPOTIFY, APPLE.
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At his Tuesday news conference, Sanderson also provided an update on injured All-American Shanye Van Ness. He has been off the mat since December due to a left leg injury but seems to be progressing well as he continues to work his way back to being able to compete with his Penn State teammates.
“He’s doing really well,” Sanderson said. “He’s ahead of where he probably should be. You hate losing a guy like Shane. Obviously, the energy [he brings], and just you’re seeing where he was trending and how well he was competing. But it’s going to be nice for him to feel good, too. Because, he always kind of had that bum knee that was kind of an issue for him off and on. He’s ahead of schedule, and I’m looking forward to getting him healthy and back in here every day.”
