Penn State shoots for 3rd straight wrestling title
Associated Press
By CLIFF BRUNT
AP Sports Writer
Oklahoma State wrestler Daton Fix is positioned to finally win an elusive national championship, and Penn State is poised to win the team title again with two potential four-time champions.
Fix has placed in the top four at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships four times, including three second-place finishes. He came back this season to use the extra year the NCAA offered because of the COVID-19 pandemic and won a record fifth Big 12 title. Now, he has earned the No. 1 seed in the 133-pound class at the NCAA tournament.
He wants to make the most of his last chance at a national title. The championships will run Thursday through Saturday at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
“Obviously, I’ve been in position to win plenty of times, and I just haven’t got the job done,” Fix said. “So I know how to get there and I know what I need to do to reach that next step on the podium. I’ve got to score some more points. And it’s something that I know that I can do. And it’s just a matter of getting back to that moment and doing it.”
Fix missed several matches with injury and illness this season for the first time in his college career. Oklahoma State coach John Smith said Fix has handled the challenges well.
“When you don’t have something for a period of time that, your identity is that, you realize just fortunate, how important it is to you,” Smith said. “So I think it helped him raise this level of hunger for a championship.”
In the team race, two-time defending national champion Penn State is again the favorite under coach Cael Sanderson. All 10 Nittany Lions wrestlers are seeded in the top 10 and six in the top two. They seek their 11th national title in the past 13 years.
Penn State’s Aaron Brooks and Carter Starocci are looking for their fourth championships.
Brooks is the No. 1 seed at 197. North Carolina State’s unbeaten Trent Hidlay could derail him. Last year’s runner-up in that class, South Dakota State’s Tanner Sloan, also is back.
Starocci is seeded just ninth at 174, in part because of a medical forfeit at the Big Ten Championships. He could have a tough road. He is one of three former national champs competing at 174. Mekhi Lewis, the 2019 champ at 165 and the No. 1 seed, and Michigan’s Shane Griffith, the 2021 champ at 165 while at Stanford, are there as well.
There’s more for Penn State. Greg Kerkvliet is the No. 1 seed at 285 after being national runner-up last year, though he could be challenged. Kerkvliet defeated Air Force’s Wyatt Hendrickson in the semifinals last year, and Hendrickson has put together another strong season.
Levi Haines, a runner-up last year at 157, and Braeden Davis, a true freshman at 125, also are No. 1 seeds for Penn State.
In the most recent NWCA Coaches Poll, Penn State was No. 1, Iowa No. 2, Nebraska No. 3 and Oklahoma State No. 4.
The top three seeds at 141 are from the Big Ten. Ohio State’s Jesse Mendez beat Penn State’s Beau Bartlett in the Big Ten final after beating last year’s national runner-up, Iowa’s Real Woods, in the semifinals. Mendez is seeded first, Bartlett second and Woods third in Kansas City.
The Penn State train won’t be stopping anytime soon. Davis, a true freshman, is coming off a Big Ten title. True freshman Tyler Kasak is the No. 7 seed at 149. Redshirt freshman Mitchell Mesenbrink is No. 2 at 165.