peanut

141 will be tough next year with Mendez and Alirez returning.

125- Davis - Lilledahl 133- Nagao - Lilledahl - Gibson 141- Kasak - Bartlett 149- SVN - Kasak 157- Haines 165- MM - Sealey 174- Facundo - Ryder - Starocci 184- Barr 197- Connor Mirasola 285- Cole Mirasola - Kerkvliet

OW candidates for me are: Arujau, Haines, Keck, Brooks, Kerk Hodge has to be Brooks.

On March 10, Starocci made a post on social media that some interpreted as him saying he was leaving Penn State out of frustration at being told to default out of the Big Ten tournament. However, tonight, Starocci said he was on crutches 12 days ago, which was March 11. Then earlier today, Starocci made a boisterous post about how aggressive he was going to be in the championship match against Welsh. He then proceeded to go out and wrestle conservatively, winning 2-0 without a takedown. This is some high-level Gen Z stuff! Anyway, Starocci's a great wrestler and did what he had to do to get that fourth title. Congratulations on a legendary career!

Brooks- Hodge winner

I love JB, but he's likely too old at this point. Wrestling is a young athlete's game, and JB's 35.

DC posted that tomorrow?

I've been saying that Carter is Kobe. Well... gunning for the Olympics with whatever injury he has is very Kobe-like.

Carter is Cael's first 4x champ. Congrats!

Rocco needs to cover his cuts

Haines with an impressive tournament.

Penn State is in four of the next five finals matches.

I believe Mendez trained with Alex Tsirtsis (or was coached by him?) for years.

Tough loss for Bartlett. He took the offensive risks and seemed to have had it won. Ugh. Congrats to Mendez.

There is indeed a good argument for Fix being the best non-champ. This year, of course, Vito is the reigning world champ. And Fix won a world silver in 2021.

Both Fix and Vito are super good, but today Vito's the better wrestler.

PSU’s true freshman, recently undersized backup places third after dropping his first match. Wow!

Starocci- “Forgot About Dre”

Kasak and Berge into third place matches after first round losses.

Here are some top performers so far in terms of individual scoring: 197- Brooks- 23 (tech - fall - fall - tech) 157- Haines- 22 (tech - tech - MD - fall) 184- Keck- 21 (MD - tech - tech- MD) 184- Plott- 20.5 (tech - MD - MD - MD) 141- Bartlett- 20 (dec - fall - fall - dec) 197- Hidlay- 20 (tech - tech- MD - dec) 133- Arujau- 20 (MD - MD - MD - MD) 141- Mendez- 19.5 (tech- fall- dec - dec) 165- Mesenbrink - 19.5 (tech - MD - dec - MD)

The HS class of 2021 was hugely impacted by COVID. Everything shut down in the spring of their junior years, and then they didn't have normal senior years. Now, when you look at the AAs, you can see that wrestlers from the class of 2021 seem oddly absent. Per WrestlingNomad, AAs by HS graduation year break down like this: 2017- 4 2018- 17 2019- 22 2020-11 2021- 5 2022- 15 2023- 6 Somehow there are fewer third year wrestlers than first year wrestlers. And the second biggest cohort is sixth year wrestlers!

They’re both great wrestlers — both champs — and they are even. And it was super fun for fans to watch.

I thought Vito and Fix were both part of the HS class of 2017 — only difference is that this is Vito’s fourth NCAA tournament and Fix’s fifth. I think Fix is somehow a little older, too. Interestingly, both are world medalists. That doesn’t happen every day in the NCAA finals.