Penn State senior David Taylor captured his second Hodge Trophy after going unbeaten this season. Tony Rotundo photo. Taylor wins 2nd Hodge By WIN Magazine For only the third time in the 20-year history of the Dan
Hodge Trophy, college wrestling’s top award will go to same individual more than once in a career. Penn State’s David Taylor dominated the official ballots in the same way he did opponents on the mat, winning 38 of the 43 official votes from the Hodge Trophy Voting Committee. Taylor joins his coach and three-time winner Cael Sanderson (2000-2002) and Missouri’s Ben Askren (2006-07) as the only multiple-time winners in the two-decade history of the award, given annually to the most dominant college wrestler. He also won the Hodge in 2012. The award, named after Oklahoma’s three-time (1955-57)
NCAA champion Dan Hodge, will be presented to Taylor at the team’s banquet on April 26. The voting committee named Taylor (165 pounds) the 2014 Hodge winner over a pair of outstanding three-time NCAA champs in Ohio State’s junior Logan Stieber (141) and senior teammate Ed Ruth (184). Another finalist was Oklahoma State’s two-time champ Chris Perry (174), who defeated former NCAA champ Andrew Howe of Oklahoma two times in the last month of the season for the title in what many thought was the toughest weight class. The fifth finalist for this year’s Hodge was Oklahoma State sophomore Alex Dieringer who won his first national title at 157. Dieringer’s only loss on the year was a January dual-meet loss to 2013 champion Derek St. John of Iowa, 2-1. Dieringer ended
up fifth in the final Hodge point standings. For the year, he had 12 pins, 5 technical falls and two majors.
But when the dust settled on a wild year of college wrestling — in which Stieber, Ruth and Perry all suffered one loss — the undefeated Taylor (34-0) was the only one left standing with a resume of dominance.
The final seven first-place votes for this year’s 2014 WIN Magazine/C.H. Dan Hodge winner, presented by ASICS, were spread apart between Stieber (three), Ruth (two) and Perry (two). Taylor’s senior-season numbers were outstanding. The
Nittany Lion, who with teammate Ed Ruth helped lead their team to a fourth straight NCAA title, had only two of 34 matches end without seeing him win bonus points. Taylor pinned 16 opponents, put up eight technical falls and had eight major deci- sions. Taylor said his goal in college was the same as it always has been in his storied youth and high school career: domination. “If I had to pick what people remembered of me, it’s that every time I stepped on the mat I tried to dominate the guys I wres- tled,” Taylor said. In his career, Taylor finished 134-3 with 50 pins, 42 technical falls and 29 major decisions.
“The way you compete is bigger than if you won or lost,” Sanderson said. “This kid has a passion for wrestling and was an entertainer and was trying to score points the whole seven minutes.”
USA Wrestler 5
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