Penn State wrestling coach Cael Sanderson tells reporters Carter Starocci will 'be ready to go' for NCAAs
Penn State three-time NCAA champion Carter Starocci officially earned a spot at this year’s NCAA Championships via an at-large selection on Tuesday. A day later, Nittany Lions head coach Cael Sanderson spoke with reporters about the 174-pound star who forfeited for medical reasons twice back at the Big Ten Championships last weekend after suffering a knee injury against Edinboro back on Feb. 25.
“He’s doing well,” Sanderson said via a video of his interview session posted by the Locked on Lions podcast. “There was some drama and some things over the weekend. But, we felt really comfortable that was obviously in his best interest to kind of not give him the opportunity to wrestle and just stay healthy. I think it was definitely the right decision. And, he’s doing well. He’ll be ready to go. I mean, he’s, he’s Carter. He was going to wrestle that [on Saturday at Big Tens], and he probably would have done really well. But, just the risk of it didn’t make sense. He’s doing well. He’s getting better pretty much every day.”
The drama Sanderson refers to comes from a series of tweets from Starocci between early Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. After leaving College Park, Md., where Big Tens were held Saturday night, he tweeted the following message hours later: “Looking forward to a new chapter . Thank you Penn State forever.” Roughly 30 hours later, he clarified what that meant by tweeting this message on Monday: “Big ten title is cool but NCAA title is cooler. Next chapter: Kansas City.”
Starocci made his first comments to reporters since all of that went down on Wednesday.
“Me not being able to compete at the Big Tens, I’m ready to cut every one of these dudes’ throats off,” Starocci said, per a video posted by The Athletic.
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Starocci, Penn State teammates, will learn NCAA seeds Wednesday night
The NCAA will livestream a bracket reveal show on Wednesday night. It will identify each wrestler’s seed, which, of course, will tell us who all 10 of the Penn State entries at nationals will face first. The Nittany Lions will have numerous No. 1 seeds. But, Starocci is unlikely to be one of them. His pair of forfeits hurt his win percentage, which is part of the formula used to seed the tournament. The expectation is that he will end up somewhere between Nos. 3-6 when all is said and done as he continues healing in preparation for a shot at winning his fourth NCAA title.
“The goal now is just go get number four,” Sanderson said, per the Locked on Lions video.
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