Marcus Blaze had never pinned an opponent like he did on Saturday.

That didn’t matter. Penn State’s 133-pounder still made it look easy.

“I’ve never actually hit that move before in my life,” Blaze said on Tuesday. “It was just kind of a low leg into a cradle, and yeah, it just ended up working out.”

The quiet true freshman was being modest.

After a back-and-forth period against Wyoming’s equally funky Luke Willochell saw Blaze suffer the first takedown of his career, the Nittany Lion upended the Cowboy seemingly out of nowhere in the second period.

Less than half a second after bouncing behind a shooting Willochell, Blaze caught the Cowboy off balance with his feet apart and quickly ran his right arm under Willowchell’s left leg while Blaze’s left hand shot toward the back of Willowchell’s neck.

In a flash, Blaze drove his stumbling opponent to a seated position on the mat, all the while tightening his grip under Willowchell’s leg.

With a little lifting, Blaze moved Willowchell onto his back and drove the now-squirming-in-desperation Cowboy’s leg toward his own chin and a pin.

“It just kind of came to me,” Blaze said. “I don’t ever really plan to hit any moves out there, I just kind of go off the feel.”

It was a nice early-season highlight for the true freshman who leads the team with 22 dual points scored and is also tied with veteran Mitchell Mesenbrink for the best individual record at 8-0.

He’s done it with speed, unpredictability and power that usually comes later for true freshmen transitioning to the collegiate style.

As many of the All-Americans and national champions who came before him quickly found out, mat wrestling is usually where vets can slow a speedy youngster’s offensive pace.

So far, it hasn’t been much of a problem for Blaze, who’s wrestled one national qualifier in Army’s Ethan Berginc. Blaze teched the fifth-year senior and three-time NCAA qualifier 21-6 on Nov. 23.

With the Big Ten schedule looming, Blaze knows it’ll get tougher.

He’s been working with most of the team’s other lightweights and often works with assistant coach Nick Lee and former Penn State star and 2023 World champ Zain Retherford.

Both dominated on the mat in their folkstyle careers.

“It’s surreal at first, just wrestling with them,” Blaze said. “I watched Zain smoke some guys when I was younger. But now that I’ve been here for a while, it’s just like, ‘Hey, what’s up Zain?’ Zain is just Zain.”

There When They Need Him

Cael Sanderson has plans for Nate Desmond to eventually chase his own individual glory.

But for now, Desmond is filling in and learning on the fly. The true freshman and former Bethlehem Catholic star joined the roster as a 125-pounder, where he won his first four matches, all at the Army Black Knight Invitational.

There, he beat teammate Luke Lilledahl 5-3, though per an NCAA rule about teammates wrestling in tournaments the match isn’t counted toward either’s record.

Lilledahl’s position as the team’s top 125-pounder is not in question, as Sanderson has confirmed Desmond is redshirting.

In the meantime, he’s big and strong enough to have moved up to 141, where he filled in for injured Aaron Nagao at Wyoming.

Desmond pulled away from Wyoming’s John Alden to post an 11-4 win up two weights.

“As a redshirt, he’s a guy that you want to get him matches and get him ready to go,” Sanderson said. “Obviously, he’s a guy we’re counting on in the future and he’s got a great future ahead of him.”

Could Desmond stick at 141 should the team need another option in addition to Cael Nasdeo as it waits on Nagao to return?

“I really don’t know the answer to that,” Sanderson said. “He could do really well at any of the three bottom weight classes, and he’s got a big frame; he could bulk up probably in the future if he wanted to.”

Nasdeo was 1-4 and Sanderson thought the sold-out Wyoming dual — at 7,220 feet above sea level — would be a good early test for Desmond, who has three events left before he’d have to burn his redshirt.

Sanderson said Desmond weighed in on the lighter side of 141 to make a potential descent easier should he need to move back to his original weight.

“He could make 125 again, it’d just be a lot of work for him,” Sanderson said. “But he’s just a tough kid, and when he made 125, he didn’t complain. He was smiling, good energy, and obviously he competed really well at that weight.”

Barr Will Travel

Sanderson said 197-pounder Josh Barr would join the team as it travels to the Collegiate Duals over the weekend.

Barr, last season’s NCAA runner-up, has not wrestled yet this season after suffering a rib injury in freestyle competition. He has been active in the room for the last two weeks.

History In The Making

Penn State has won 75 dual meets in a row and could break Oklahoma State’s current Division I record of 76 straight wins with victories over North Dakota State and Stanford.