Local wrestlers in college

As promised, here is a list of local wrestlers in college.

A few words of caution, though: My coverage area for The Tribune-Democrat does not include all of Districts 5 and 6. I've pondered trying to expand the blog to cover all, but it might not be possible, given my time constraints. For now, I've concentrated on the schools from my coverage area. If anyone wants to put together more names from District 5 (Everett, Hyndman, Northern Bedford and Tussey Mountain) or those from the eastern portion of District 6, I'd love to have them.

For now, only Division I wrestlers are listed. I'm working on a list of DII wrestlers, but really the only ones I know are at UPJ and you can see Mountain Cats roster here. If you know of any others at DII or DIII schools, please let me know.

If I've missed anyone, please don't take this as a slight. Let me know about it and I'll add them to the list.

Division I schools

 Name                           School              Wt       Year     11-12               Hometown

Bedford

Devin Cook                  Clarion             149      R-SO   8-13                 Bedford

Central Cambria

*Tony Risaliti                Army                149      FR       N/A                 Ebensburg

Forest Hills

R.J. Brydon                  Lock Haven     141      FR       N/A                 South Fork

North Star

Nick Roberts                Ohio State        125      FR       N/A                 Hooversville

Penn Cambria

Paul Myers                   S. Ill.-Ed.         133      SO       10-5                 Cresson

Shade

James Otten                 Edinboro          157      FR       N/A                 Windber

Westmont Hilltop

Tanner Hough               Duke                141      SO       23-13#             Johnstown

Josh Polacek                Maryland          141      R-FR   1-3                   Johnstown

T.J. Keklak                  Kent State        157      R-JR    4-10                 Johnstown

United/Kiski School

Evan Henderson           N. Carolina      141      SO       28-13#             New Florence

Robert Henderson        N. Carolina      149      R-FR   1-1                   New Florence

#-NCAA Qualifier

Ligonier Valley's Josh Patrick headed to the Big Ten

It's been tough to find time to blog so far this wrestling season, but here's a story I did on Ligonier Valley's Josh Patrick signing with Rutgers for The Tribune-Democrat.
From what I know of him, Patrick seems like a great kid, and it's exciting to know that Rutgers will be moving to the Big Ten, which means he'll have the opportunity to face the nation's best competition.
Another local graduate, Westmont Hilltop's Josh Polacek, will also be moving to the Big Ten. Polacek is a redshirt freshman at Maryland, which announced Monday that it will join the Big Ten in July 2014.
North Star graduate Nick Roberts is a freshman at Ohio State and Forest Hills senior Cody Law has committed to Penn State.
So, if all goes as planned, we'll have four wrestlers from the Johnstown area in the nation's toughest conference in four years. That's pretty impressive.
On a side note, I have been trying to track down all of the local D1 wrestlers from our area and hope to have that posted within the next couple of days.
After that, I'll start looking ahead to the high school season.

Pa. wrestlers shine at NWCA All-Star Classic

I'm guessing that most of you, like me, didn't get to see the NWCA All-Star Classic on Saturday night. Sadly, it wasn't on TV and was only on flowrestling.com through subscription. It is scheduled to be broadcast by Fox College Sports at some point, but no one seems to know when (or exactly what Fox College Sports is).
It's a real shame, because not only was their some fantastic wrestling on display, but some Pennsylvania wrestlers took center stage.
Four of the 10 matches were won by wrestlers who went to high school in Pennsylvania: District 6 was represented by A.J. Schopp (Tyrone), who won at 133 pounds; Dylan Alton (Central Mountain), who won at 157; and Quentin Wright (Bald Eagle), who lost at 197. District 7 featured Nico Megaludis (Franklin Regional), who won at 125, and Matt Wilps (Chartiers Valley), who beat Wright at 197. Throw in Robert Hamlin, who is from Vermont but wrestles for Lehigh, and Keystone State wrestlers won half of the matches.
Oh, and there was some guy named David Taylor, who is from Ohio but wrestles for Penn State, who lost to some New Yorker named Kyle Dake in what was billed as the "match of the century." It sounds like it was a good one, as did the Wilps-Wright matchup.
Here's the Penn State release on the classic.

125--No. 2 Nico Megaludis (Penn State) dec. No. 3 Jesse Delgado (Illinois), 4-3
133--No. 6 A.J. Schopp (Edinboro) dec. No. 4 Chris Dardanes (Minnesota), 2-1 
141--No. 1 Kendric Maple (Oklahoma) dec. No. 5 B.J. Futrell (Illinois), 6-2
149--No. 2 Jason Chamberlain (Boise State) dec. No. 9 Nick Lester (Oklahoma), 6-3
157--No. 2 Dylan Alton (Penn State) dec. Jason Welch (Northwestern), 3-2
165--No. 1 Kyle Dake (Cornell) dec. No. 2 David Taylor (Penn State), 2-1 TB
174--No. 4 Josh Asper (Maryland) dec. No. 2 Jordan Blanton (Illinois), 3-1 SV
184--No. 3 Robert Hamlin (Lehigh) dec. No. 4 Kevin Steinhaus (Minnesota), 5-3
197--No. 3 Matt Wilps (Pittsburgh) pinned No. 2 Quentin Wright (Penn State), 6:50
285--No. 2 Dom Bradley (Missouri) dec. No. 5 Mike McMullan (Northwestern), 3-2