Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1533674
8 A P R I L 2 0 2 5 OPENING SHOT CITY OF CHAMPIONS When trying to assess what Penn State ac- complished at the NCAA Wrestling Champion- ships in Philadelphia March 20-22, the hard part is figuring out where to start. Was Carter Starocci the biggest story to come out of PSU's tournament run? The graduate 184-pounder won his fifth NCAA title, defeating Northern Iowa's Parker Keckeisen, 4-3, in the final match of his college career. No wrestler before him had ever won five Division I indi- vidual championships, and given that Starocci gained his extra season of eligibility as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it's possible that no one will ever do it again. Maybe the biggest story was that Penn State saw all 10 of its wrestlers earn All-America hon- ors, with no wrestler finishing lower than sixth. Since the tournament began in 1928, only one team had claimed All-America laurels at every weight class. Minnesota did it in 2001, but the Gophers didn't have any national champions that year, while Penn State crowned two in Philly. In addition to Starocci's history-making title, redshirt sophomore Mitchell Mesenbrink won the 165-pound championship. Then again, maybe the most noteworthy as- pect of Penn State's performance was the 177 points it amassed in the team race. The Nittany Lions broke their own NCAA Tournament scor- ing record, set last year when they won the championship in Kansas City with 172.5 points. Competing in their home state this time, the Li- ons outdistanced second-place Nebraska by 60 points and third-place Oklahoma State by 74.5. The championship was Penn State's fourth in a row and its 12th in the past 14 seasons in which the tournament had been contested, further establishing coach Cael Sanderson's program as one of the all-time great dynasties in college sports. Sanderson tends to downplay such talk, preferring instead to focus on the process rather than the results. He did so again in the aftermath of PSU's latest triumph. "I just know what my job is," Sanderson said. "My job is to put together the best staff we can at Penn State and recruit the student-athletes that fit the character and the focus and the mold that we're looking for, and just be the absolute best we can be. If we do that, we're going to continue to be successful." — Matt Herb PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS