Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1544053
4 2 A P R I L 2 0 2 6 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M don't want to call stalling even when they are stalling." Mesenbrink's tournament run was so one-sided he was named the season's most dominant wrestler and the tourna- ment's outstanding wrestler while going 5-0, scoring 74 points and winning his final by technical fall over Iowa's Mikey Caliendo, someone Mesenbrink has de- feated nine consecutive times. "It's an ever-growing process, it's an ever-continuing process that when you go into practice and you want to enjoy it and you want to develop technique. You're not focused on, OK, when am I out of here? When's 3:00 rolling around so I can roll out?" said Mesenbrink, who has won 54 consecutive matches. "It's an ever-growing process that's never fully done. Keep having fun and keep enjoying it." Haines enjoyed his final collegiate match, winning 2-1 over Nebraska's Christopher Minto, also on a stalling point. "He had a game plan, he followed the game plan," Haines said of Minto. "Chris is a tough competitor, so the match went the way it did. I don't think I need to go back and change anything. It happened the way it was supposed to. "Maybe fans don't find that super appealing, but if you've been around wrestling, you understand that high- IQ chess match out there with styles and game plans. You can appreciate that match if you've been around the sport long enough." Barr and Mesenbrink each had a 100 percent bonus rate heading into the NCAAs; each of the 41 matches they won this year prior to the NCAAs earned bonus points for Penn State. Each had one match at the NCAAs that ended that streak, and Barr's came in his 6-3 win against Oklahoma State's Cody Merrill in the 197-pound final. "I think I probably didn't open up as much in that match as I have in matches prior," Barr said. "I'll kick myself for that for a while, not for the bonus rate or anything, just because I feel like I left a little bit out there. I'm not even breath- ing hard right now. "[Merrill] is a freshman, so I'll be competing against him in the years to come. Hopefully, I can improve the next time I wrestle." Back To Work Top-seeded Van Ness was upset by No. 10 seed Aden Valencia of Stanford at 149 on an overtime takedown, and a first- period takedown by Minnesota's Max McEnelly was enough to give him a 4-3 win over Penn State's Welsh at 184. "Obviously, our hearts and minds are with the kids who didn't reach their goals, and we're here thinking about what can we do better," Sanderson said. Penn State's Duke was involved in a controversial match in the 157-pound semifinal round against eventual cham- pion and fellow freshman Landon Ro- bideau of Oklahoma State. Tied at 1-1 in the sudden victory period with Ro- bideau, Duke came out of a scramble and was able to hook up a cradle. He was awarded a takedown by the official, and the match was stopped with an apparent win for Duke. But Oklahoma State coach David Taylor, the former Penn State star and Olympic champion, challenged the call, and it was overturned with little to no explanation. Duke eventually gave up a reversal in the tiebreaker period and was relegated to the consolations where he placed third. "Definitely hard," Duke said. "I lost a little bit of sleep over it, but at the end Sophomore 125-pounder Luke Lilledahl won his first NCAA title with a 2-1 decision over Princeton's Marc-Anthony McGowan in the final. PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS