Penn State Wrestling: Nittany Lion Trio Seeking Perfection

Penn State wrestling coach Cael Sanderson’s four perfect championship seasons at Iowa State is a rare, never-before-matched feat.

He is one of just 110 collegiate individuals who has ever recorded a perfect season that resulted in a championship since the first recorded instance by a pair of wrestlers at Illinois and Iowa in 1926. Sanderson, of course, raised the bar to a whole other level, finishing his college career 159-0.

Rare as it is for a perfect season, it’s even more uncommon to have three wrestlers on one team finish the season perfect. In fact, it hasn’t happened in 15 years.

However, defending national champion Penn State will have a trio of unbeaten wrestlers in the field Thursday when the NCAA championships get under way at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.

Frank Molinaro (149 pounds), David Taylor (165) and Ed Ruth (174) have made it through the regular season — which included a rugged second-half Big Ten conference schedule and the prestigious Southern Scuffle, as well as the Big Ten tournament, unscathed.

That places them on a level with historic trio individual performances of the past, the last coming in 1997 when Iowa had three wrestlers finish the regular season perfect.

‘Having three undefeated wrestlers carries a little extra weight, because when you look at Penn State’s schedule, and when you are undefeated after the Big Ten tournament, you have gone through the gauntlet,’ said Eric Betterman of The Open Mat, a website devoted to wrestling.

The Nittany Lions have certainly wrestled a gauntlet. After deciding to go to the Scuffle at the start of the new year caused a back-loaded schedule, Penn State wrestled nine of its 14 dual matches after the Scuffle, including seven matches against Big Ten conference foes.

With that in mind, it’s an impressive feat, but even more so according to Betterman, who believes the parity in the sport, especially in the Big Ten, makes the feat even more special.

‘By getting through the Big Ten tournament, it adds a little bit of extra weight to the accomplishment,’ Betterman said. ‘The difference from five years ago to now is that there is a little bit more parity in the sport and more diversity with individuals in the Big Ten, especially when you consider 25 percent of the kids that are ranked in their weight class are in the Big Ten.’

But is parity truly a good thing? It’s a hotly debated item in the wrestling community, and Intermat’s T.R. Foley isn’t so sure.

‘Wrestling’s always striving for recognition, and parity doesn’t do it for the mainstream audience,’ Foley said. ‘And the dominance of Penn State and these three individual draws in a lot more people, just like Iowa in the 1990s did.’

Of course, the Iowa that Foley refers to is the Hawkeyes group that won 17 individual titles over the course of a decade, including Mark Ironside, Lincoln McIlavy and Joe Williams, the last trio of wrestlers who headed to the national tournament undefeated.

It’s domination like that that Foley believes is best for the sport.

‘We want more people to be interested in our sport,’ Foley said. ‘And when guys dominate, people want to follow winners, and therefore, more people are tuning in.’

While a spotless regular-season record is something to be proud of, it will all be for naught if a gold medal is not placed around the neck of Molinaro, Taylor, and Ruth on Saturday night. Until then, their place in history rests in the balance.

Related content

• StateCollege.com’s Penn State wrestling page