Looking forward to next year already, I wanted to give a little report on each weight and some contributions you can expect from guys who weren’t in the lineup last year.

The term "redshirt report" may be a bit of a misnomer. While many of these athletes were redshirting last year, I didn’t want to exclude guys who were transferring, 2nd string, etc. So it’s a bigger umbrella of what we can call incoming impact guys.

125 had an extremely high volume of talent. Possibly the most fun weight to follow, apart from Nico you could take your pick as to which 125 you got the most excited about: Russell, Boston and Macri all had great moments this season.  Now here they are, in no particular order!


Dalton Macri-Cornell-Macri competed for Finger Lakes Wrestling Club this season and should be competing for Cornell next year. He spent most of the time at 125 but did compete at 133 some as well. Where he fits into the lineup is unclear at this time and will likely hinge on where Nahshon Garrett wrestles next year. He knocked off Lehigh All American Darian Cruz as well as Edinboro’s Sean Russell. He took some losses but only to quality competition: Conaway, Klimara, Mines and a loss at 133 to Tyler Goodwin. Time and time again we’ve seen Cornell churn out Freshman AA studs. Don’t be surprised if Macri is turning heads next year. 

Nathan Boston-ISU-Boston is a little tougher to project considering he was only able to wrestle in 2 tournaments. That being said, he had a fairly solid showing in those, losing only to teammate Kyle Larson and Alan Waters and notching a win over the aforementioned Stevan Micic. 

Darian Cruz-Lehigh-The second All American from 2 years ago to redshirt this season. The Lehigh Sophomore came out of relative obscurity a year ago to place, coming in unseeded to NCAA’s. He put in some more work this off-season while Scotty Parker manned the position for Lehihg. Cruz took a few lumps falling to Willeford, Macri and Forys. He got tons of mat time wrestling over 30 matches and beat Edinboro’s Sean Russell on 2 occasions.

Sean Russell-Edinboro-I think Russell is going to be excellent as well.  I am glad he had a year to redshirt and hone his attacks.  Defensively he's always been stout, now it's just a matter of adding an attack or two.  His front headlock has been college level for some time now.  Under Coach Flynn and company you can expect a blue chipper like Sean to be ready to go day 1.  He didn't have a win that would get you especially excited but honestly I was impressed and here's why.  He wrestled a huge volume of matches, around 30 or so as a Freshman and still only lost to Cruz, Micic, Conaway, Tolbert and Larson.  There's not a bad loss on there in my opinion.  You'll see talented guys drop matches as redshirts that you'd never expect.  I feel extremely confident Sean is going to qualify for the big dance and win matches at a minimum. 

Barlow McGhee-Missouri-Look for McGhee to have a nice season as well as he’ll have the job of attempting to fill the shoes of Alan Waters. McGhee redshirted this season and was solid, not spectacular much like his true Freshman campaign. This is a gut/eyeball call here. Watch out for this guy next year. In high school McGhee took out AA Darian Cruz.  Check it out here:



Nico Megaludis-PSU-We all know Nico and what he will bring to the scene, so we won’t spend too much time here. I’ll only mention that Megaludis didn’t wrestle one Folkstlye match during his redshirt. It was obvious there was a strong focus on development and Freestyle as he entered a few Freestyle tournaments this season. It is assumed, though not guaranteed that Nico will be back next year. He could potentially have the option of an Olympic redshirt depending on how he does this Spring in Freestyle.

Other Redshirt Reports:
133
141
149
157