#2 Recruit Vincenzo Joseph Picks Penn State

Pittsburgh Central Catholic senior and 2014 PIAA State Champion Vincenzo Joseph has chosen to stay in Pennsylvania for the immediate future. Joseph, the #2 ranked senior in PA, will join the 3x NCAA Champion Nittany Lion wrestling program headed by Cael Sanderson.

Joseph is coming off the best season of his career which was capped by the 2014 PIAA Class AAA 138 lbs. State Championship. In the POWERade finals at 138 lbs. Vincenzo dropped a (3-2) decision to Franklin Regional’s Michael Kemerer. That defeat was the last one Joseph would suffer on the season.

In the WPIAL Tournament Joseph advanced into his third straight finals appearance and avenged the defeat to Kemerer with a decisive (5-2) victory to capture his first career WPIAL Championship. The next week in the PIAA Class AAA State Finals the two rivals met again for the third time on the season. It was Vincenzo’s first State Finals appearance and Kemerer’s third. Unlike the week earlier the two remained in a deadlock after six minuets of wrestling. In sudden victory Kemerer was in on Joseph’s leg but a flurry ensued and the end result was Kemerer on his back and the referee slapping the mat.

As a junior Vincenzo finished fifth at the POWERade Tournament, was a WPIAL runner-up, and a PIAA State third place finisher competing at 120 lbs. His third place finish was an improvement on the seventh place medal he earned as a freshman at 106 lbs. During his freshman season Vincenzo won the 2011 POWERade Championship at 106 lbs., was a WPIAL runner-up, and a PIAA State seventh place medalist.

Arguably the greatest achievement Vincenzo Joseph captured in 2014 was not the PIAA State Championship but the USAW Junior Nationals runner-up finish he secured over the summer. Competing at 145 lbs. in Fargo, ND Joseph took on the Nation’s top talent and finished one win shy of a Junior Freestyle National Championship. The performance solidified his stock as one of the Nation’s top recruits of 2015.

Overall Vincenzo enters his senior season at Central Catholic with a career record of (105-20) and predicts to compete for Penn State head coach Cael Sanderson around 141 lbs./149 lbs.