Sunnyside High School graduate Roman Bravo-Young, a junior at Penn State, defeated Iowa’s Austin DeSanto by a 5-2 decision in the 133-pound class Sunday at University Park, Pa., to claim his first Big Ten championship.
Bravo-Young, 9-0 this season and 53-9 in his Nittany Lion career, now moves on to the NCAA tournament as a high seed.
The selection of the wrestling bracket will be Wednesday night. This year’s national tournament will be held at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis on March 18-20.
“It feels good. I just had some fun out there,” Bravo-Young told the Big Ten Network after defeating DeSanto for the third straight time in their rivalry.
RBY = B1G Champ. pic.twitter.com/4JTAmN4Nvt
— Penn State WRESTLING (@pennstateWREST) March 7, 2021
Bravo-Young, the No. 1 seed at 133 pounds in the Big Ten tournament, is now 3-2 against DeSanto, including a 3-2 win over him in last year’s Big Ten semifinals.
After that win over DeSanto, Bravo-Young lost in the title match 7-2 to Northwestern’s Sebastian Rivera.
Bravo-Young’s foot quickness enabled him to get two spinning takedowns and an escape against DeSanto.
“We got a game plan, and I stuck to it,” Bravo-Young said. “I think I was three steps ahead of him the whole time moving my feet.
“It feels good after losing last year. Now, I’ll just get ready for the big show.”
Bravo-Young, who trains locally at Jet Sports Training, went 182-0 over four years at Sunnyside, winning four straight state titles in the process.
He has won 28 of his last 30 matches for the Nittany Lions.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
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