PHILADELPHIA — A five-time NCAA champion. Ten All-Americans. 177 team points.
Taken separately, each of those was strictly aspirational for any one college wrestling team to accomplish at a national tournament.
Collectively, those three records were just the latest achievements for the dynastic Penn State wrestling team at the 2025 NCAA Div. I Wrestling Championships at the Wells Fargo Center.
Nittany Lion 184-pounder Carter Starocci leveraged an additional year of eligibility granted by the NCAA due to the COVID year to establish an unprecedented and most likely, unassailable record.
Penn State broke the NCAA tournament team scoring mark of 172.5 points it had established just last year and, in the process, crowned 10 All-Americans, none finishing lower than sixth, which had never been done before. Minnesota had been the only team to claim 10 All-Americans in one tournament, and none of them were champions. In fact, those 10 Gophers finished between third and eighth.
It is Penn State’s fourth consecutive championship, the 12th in the last 14 contested tournaments and 13th in program history. Penn State is third on the all-time list behind second-place Iowa with 24 and first-place Oklahoma State with 34.
Two of those 10, Starocci (184) and sophomore Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), won championships. Another Nittany Lion, freshman Josh Barr (197), finished as a runner-up, despite nursing a left hamstring injury.
Five others wrestled back from quarterfinal and semifinal losses to finish third: freshman Luke Lilledahl (125), senior Beau Bartlett (141), redshirt sophomore Shayne Van Ness (149), sophomore Tyler Kasak (157) and junior Levi Haines (174).
Sophomore Braeden Davis (133) finished fifth and senior Greg Kerkvliet (285) settled for sixth after a knee injury sustained between the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments severely limited his mobility.
It was a tour de force never before seen.
“It’s a great team. Just 10 quality, tough, 10 All-Americans. Obviously super hard to do,” coach Cael Sanderson said Saturday night.
“Everybody’s talking about the expectations and the point record or whatever it is. We don’t talk about that stuff. But you know kids live on their phones so they’re seeing it and hearing all the time and it’s hard. Being expected to do something and doing it is probably the toughest thing in sports, but it also makes it a fun challenge.”
Those 10 wrestlers compiled a 49-10 record, winning 83% of their matches. The records are startling for the highest level of competition the NCAA offers: Lilledahl (6-1), Davis (5-2), Bartlett (5-1), Van Ness (5-1), Kasak (6-1), Mesenbrink (5-0), Haines (5-1), Starocci (5-0), Barr (4-1), Kerkvliet (3-2).
Those 49 wins produced 34.5 bonus points with 10 major decisions, seven technical falls and seven pins.
In the 15 tournaments Sanderson has coached in, he’s won 12 championships. The other three resulted in a runner-up finish and sixth- and ninth-place finishes. Sanderson moved into second place on the career national championships by a coach list. He trails only Iowa legend Dan Gable, whose teams won 15 under him.
Nebraska, with two champions, finished in second with 117 points. Oklahoma State, which also crowned two champions, finished third with 102.5. Iowa, with a champ of its own, finished fourth with 81.
Starocci was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler. Mesenbrink won the award for most technical falls in a season — 18. The Cornhuskers’ Mark Manning was voted Coach of the Year.
ESPN asked that the 184-pound final be moved to the first match of the championships to showcase the showdown between two undefeated champions — Starocci and defending champion Parker Keckeisen of Northern Iowa.
After a scoreless first, Starocci and Keckeisen swapped escapes to start the second and third periods. As the clock ticked under a minute, Starocci countered a Keckeisen shot and scored the decisive takedown with just 46 seconds left. The Panther would escape and earn a stalling point but Starocci held on for the 4-3 win.
“When I had a double leg, I kind of heard Coach Casey say, ‘it’s danger.’ So then when he said that, I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ Like I forgot about that,” Starocci said.
“So, then I peeked over my shoulder and I saw that his back was close to the mat. At that point, I started threatening danger more. So, the ref sort of counted danger, and that kind of made him adjust his hips and balance a little more. As soon as he shifted, that’s when I made the adjustment and got the takedown.”
Starocci acknowledged his place in history but wouldn’t elevate himself over his head coach.
“As a competitor, when you toe the line, I believe I’m the baddest dude out there,” he said, and then he started detailing what Sanderson has done as an athlete and a coach.
“He’s coached everything that he’s done. I think that’s going to live on forever. So, I think he’s the greatest of all time.”
Starocci ends his career with a 104-4 career record, two of them injury defaults at last year’s Big Ten tournament.
Mesenbrink claimed Penn State’s second title of the night as he defeated Iowa’s Mikey Caliendo 8-2. The Nittany Lion is 6-0 all-time against the Hawkeye. His title comes a year after his near-miss 9-8 loss in the final.
Mesenbrink carried the action throughout, scoring takedowns in the second and third periods and adding a pair of escapes.
“I think the main thing is going to sound ironic is that it’s not all about being a national champion, right? It’s about your performance. And I’m so lucky to have been brought up through that, through AWA (Askren Wrestling Academy) and, most importantly, my dad and then go to Penn State, and even more so, it’s about performance, right? Like if, if I wouldn’t have went out there and brought it, then, honestly, I’d rather lose,” he said.
Mesenbrink, who said after his 4-1 win over Caliendo in the Big Ten title bout that he appreciated his willingness to battle, emphasized that again.
“We’re gladiators out there. You see how many people are watching. People want to see people scrap,” he said. “They want to see people fight. But if it’s like 1-1 and we’re going to stand there, that kind of makes me want to puke. I don’t really want to see that.”
Barr fell just short in the 197-pound final against Iowa’s Stephen Buchanan. After a scoreless first, Barr earned a point for locked hands and an escape to open a 2-0 lead. Buchanan, though, scored a takedown with 32 seconds left. He escaped in the third and would not let Barr penetrate his defense. A point for riding time set the final at 5-2.
The Nittany Lions clinched the team title midway through the consolation semifinals early Saturday afternoon.
When Session 5 started, Penn State enjoyed a 34-point lead on second-place Nebraska, 135-5 – 101.5. By the end of the session, which included consolation semifinals and third-, fifth- and seventh-place bouts, the Nittany Lions went 11-2 and expanded their total to 169 and lead to 60 over Nebraska.
Lilledahl posted two wins divergent wins Saturday to earn his third-place finish. A sudden victory win and a fall in 6:18, the first of his career.
Seeded No. 1, Lilledahl said his mindset was to get the next-best thing after being upset in the quarterfinals.
“My coaches just telling me ‘these guys all want a reason to quit, so give it to them.’ Just wrestling hard and getting in my positions is going to do that. It gets in their heads whenever they can’t win the mini battles in the hand ties and top and bottom,” he said.
Bartlett, too, survived a sudden victory period in his consolation semifinal and then breezed to a major decision for his 100th career win. He finished his career with a 100-20 record.
“Yesterday, I felt like I let people down a little bit. There was that feeling. But just the positive words I got from everyone knowing how happy they are to see me …,” he said. “Ten All-Americans, that is spectacular.”
Van Ness was dominant in bouncing back from his semifinal loss, posting a fall in 1:06 and a 15-4 major decision.
Kasak had a harder path to his third-place finish. He survived a 4-2 decision and then won 8-0 in the third-place bout.
“There’s a great deal of gratitude and a great deal of dissatisfaction that kind of comes with taking third again. It’s not something that you want to get,” he said.
Last year, Kasak lost his first bout of the tournament and then won seven consecutive bouts in the consolation bracket to take third.
Haines, too, had to bounce back from a heartbreaking semifinal loss. He posted a 4-1 win and an 11-3 major decision for third.
Davis dropped his consolation semifinal match 8-5. But in the fifth-place bout, he scored a defensive fall from neutral in 2:33 to finish in fifth, ahead of his No. 8 seed.
Kerkvliet, obviously limited by his heavily braced left knee, medically forfeited his consolation semifinal and fifth-place bouts. He finished his career as a five-time All-American and 2024 NCAA champion with a 92-13 career record.
