Penn State Sports Magazine
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4 2 A P R I L 2 0 2 2 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M F ive wrestlers. Five champions. Five different styles. But at this level, on the NCAA's big stage, the striking similarities among the Penn State wres- tlers who produced the latest gold-medal efforts at the national tournament are the confidence and overall mat awareness it takes not only to know when and how to attack but how to win. Each of Penn State's five NCAA wres- tling champions — senior Roman Bravo- Young (133 pounds), super senior Nick Lee (141), sophomore Carter Starocci (174), junior Aaron Brooks (184) and junior Max Dean (197) — had been in the finals before. The first four were defending 2021 titles, while Dean was a runner-up for Cornell in 2019. Just because a wrestler has been there and done that doesn't mean it's easy to do it again. But it doesn't hurt. That doesn't apply only for the finals. A wrestler must win four consecutive bouts to get there, and some of matches are easier than others. The Nittany Lions effectively clinched their ninth team title since 2011 when they won five of six in the semifinal round. Three of the five semifinal winners — Bravo-Young, Lee and Brooks — had nail- biting battles. "The guys did a great job, kept their composure, were the aggressors, went out there and got the takedowns. … They were themselves," Penn State wrestling coach Cael Sanderson said. "These big moments when the team race is on the line, that's a lot, and that's something our guys deal with." It's something they thrive on, actually. Bravo-Young won each of his final two matches by 3-2 scores over Iowa's Austin DeSanto and Oklahoma State's Daton Fix. He took down DeSanto with nine seconds left for his semifinal victory and held off late offensive attempts by Fix to clinch the final. "You have to be on-point every single match. You can't slip up. It's not easy," Bravo-Young said. "It means everything. It's hard. "I never thought when I was a kid growing up in Tucson, Ariz., I'd be in this position, wrestling in front of my fam- ily in a sold-out arena. Never thought I'd be a national champ, yet I'm a two-time champ." Lee, who had a one-point win in the semifinals over Stanford's Real Woods, had an easier final with a 10-3 victory over North Carolina's Kizhan Clarke. But it didn't come without an anxious mo- ment or two. Clarke scored the opening takedown, and after Lee escaped, Clarke stepped in to hook up a bearhug and tossed Lee toward his back. But Lee rolled across his shoulders harmlessly, got to his feet and scored the first of three take- downs in a win. "I wasn't asleep. He's a good wrestler, so he got that takedown," Lee said. "I just stayed calm and did my thing, and the results took care of themselves." Starocci was in an extremely talented weight class but wasn't tested until the fi- nals against 2019 NCAA champion Mehki Lewis of Virginia Tech. (Lewis defeated Penn State's Vincenzo Joseph in the finals that year.) This was two wrestlers of equal ability in a back-and-forth bout that took 10 minutes (instead of seven) to decide. Starocci won because he had 15 seconds more riding time in the tiebreaker over- time periods than Lewis. Starocci never has lacked for confi- dence and wasn't enamored about win- ning by such a close margin. "He backed up — I don't think he took a step forward unless I was pulling on him. He wasn't really looking to generate of- fense, just trying to keep it close," he said. "That's his style. That's something that I'll work on and improve on. I'll watch the tape, look it over with Coach Casey [Cun- ningham], and we'll learn and grow." Brooks avenged an overtime defeat in the Big Ten finals to Michigan's Myles Amine — an Olympic bronze medalist — by accumulating an impressive 3 min- utes, 36 seconds of riding time during his 5-3 victory. Amine scored a late takedown that made the score close in a bout that was anything but. Brooks took the Big Ten loss to heart and went home to Hagerstown, Md., to regroup. "After that loss with Amine, I think that was God calling me. He woke me up," Brooks said. PSU's Five Champs Share A Composed Mindset J I M C A R L S O N | B L U E W H I T E C O N T R I B U T O R Half of this year's NCAA individual champions were Penn Staters. From left to right: Roman Bravo-Young (133), Nick Lee (141), Carter Starocci (174), Aaron Brooks (184) and Max Dean (197). PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS