Penn State crowned four national champions and set an NCAA wrestling tournament points record in cruising to its fifth consecutive national title Saturday night inside Rocket Arena in Cleveland.<\/p>\n
The Nittany Lions\u2019 181.5 points topped the previous mark of 177, which the program set last year. Penn State finished 50.5 points better than runner-up Oklahoma State, which had three champions. Nebraska, Iowa and Ohio State rounded out the top five.<\/p>\n
Penn State coach Cael Sanderson claimed his 13th national championship in 17 years and is just two titles shy of tying Iowa legend Dan Gable for the most in history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an incredible year,\u201d Sanderson told reporters afterward. \u201cObviously, our hearts and minds are with kids who didn\u2019t reach their goals, and we\u2019re here thinking about, \u2018Hey, what can we do better? We\u2019ve got to do this better.\u2019 We\u2019ve got a lot on our minds now.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy for the team. Just really an incredible group of guys, outstanding year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penn State\u2019s champions included Luke Lilledahl (125 pounds), Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), Levi Haines (174) and Josh Barr (197). All four finished the season unbeaten. Two other Nittany Lions fell in the finals to finish second: Shayne Van Ness (149) and Rocco Welsh (184).<\/p>\n
The individual titles were especially meaningful for Mesenbrink and Haines, who began their careers as rivals and ended up as friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the guy. It\u2019s great to see him win,\u201d Mesenbrink told reporters afterward. \u201cIt\u2019s even cooler to see our faces up on the Penn State wall together and side by side for NCAA Championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe year he won, I didn\u2019t win. The year that I won, he didn\u2019t win. \u2026 So, this year we win together, and we win as a team. And now we\u2019ve got Rocco and Josh and all the other guys, and Luke, and all those guys that go out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough to speak to the brotherhood of Penn State because I would do anything for each and every one of those guys,\u201d Haines said. \u201cI\u2019ve had some tough moments in my career at Penn State, but there\u2019s always been somebody there to kind of pick me up along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oklahoma State continues to surge as a program in David Taylor\u2019s second season as coach. Taylor, who won two national titles and finished second twice as a wrestler for Penn State, guided the Cowboys to their best finish in 10 years. Their three national champions are the program\u2019s most since 2005.<\/p>\n
One of Taylor\u2019s national champions was freshman Sergio Vega, who stopped Ohio State\u2019s Jesse Mendez\u2019s attempt at a third straight national title with a 4-1 win at 141 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been watching (Taylor) since I was younger,\u201d Vega said. \u201cBeing able to be in the same room as him, sometimes I catch myself being a little fanboy still. It\u2019s just so awesome. I\u2019m so grateful to be where I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Championship results<\/p>\n
Team scoring (top 10): 1. Penn State 181.5; 2. Oklahoma State 131; 3. Nebraska 100.5; 4. Iowa 92.5; 5. Ohio State 84.5; 6. Stanford 67.5; 7. Michigan 66; 8. Iowa State 52; 9. Minnesota 48.5; 10. NC State 44.5<\/p>\n
Individual results<\/p>\n
125: Luke Lilledahl (Penn State) dec. Marc-Anthony McGowan (Princeton), 2-1
133: Jax Forrest (Oklahoma State) dec. Ben Davino (Ohio State), 5-2
141: Sergio Vega (Oklahoma State) dec. Jesse Mendez (Ohio State), 4-1 (sudden victory)
149: Aden Valencia (Stanford) dec. Shayne Van Ness (Penn State), 8-5 (sudden victory)
157: Landon Robideau (Oklahoma State) dec. Antrell Taylor (Nebraska), 4-2
165: Mitchell Mesenbrink (Penn State) tech. fall over Mikey Caliendo (Iowa), 20-4 (5:13)
174: Levi Haines (Penn State) dec. Christopher Minto (Nebraska), 2-1
184: Max McEnelly (Minnesota) dec. Rocco Welsh (Penn State), 4-3
197: Josh Barr (Penn State) dec. Cody Merrill (Oklahoma State), 6-3
285: Isaac Trumble (NC State) dec. Yonger Bastida (Iowa State), 5-0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penn State crowned four national champions and set an NCAA wrestling tournament points record in cruising to its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[339,7,49,48,2743],"class_list":{"0":"post-826435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-penn-state-nittany-lions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116270876734596797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}