Cornell Kevin

This years U23 world team will be composed of 7 Nittany Lion Wreslters. 57KG LUKE LILLEDAHL Penn St 61KG JAX FORREST Okla St 65KG MARCUS BLAZE Penn St 70KG PJ DUKE Penn St 74KG M. MESENBRINK Penn St 79KG LEVI HAINES Penn St 86KG ROCCO WELSH Penn St 92KG JOSH BARR Penn St 97KG KOUEKABAKILAHO GV 125KG D. HERRERA Iowa St • PJ Duke, 18 years of age, will be competing in the trifecta this year. He is on and competing in U20, U23, and Senior World Championships. While Amit Elor has done this exact trifecta in back to back years, winning 6 golds, no American male has ever attempted this. Americans pulling multi-duty: -PJ Duke 70kg; U20…U23….Sr - Marcus Blaze; U20 61kg…U23 65kg -Levi Haines 79kg; U23…..Sr. (Forrest 61kg; U23, maybe Sr) • Mitchell Mesenbrink, who has a U20 Gold & Silver, will be looking to improve on his U23 Bronze medal from last year. • Luke Lilledahl has been in 4 consecutive world age level finals. Luke has gone 2024 U20 Gold 2023 U20 Silver 2022 U17 Gold 2021 U17 Silver Luke Lilledahl now stands in attempt to becoming the 1st and only American male to win Gold in U17/U20/U23 World championships. If he does not pull off the Gold this year at U23s..Both him and Meyer Shapiro will still have 3 years left of U23 eligibility to accomplish this. • 7/10 U23 National team members are on our American Senior National team… -#2 Lilledahl 57kg -#1/2 Forrest 61kg -#3 Blaze 65kg -#1 Duke 70kg -#2 Mesenbrink 74kg -#1 Haines 79kg -#2 Barr 92kg • This teams past age level world teams and results -Lilledahl 2024 U20 Gold 2023 U20 Silver 2022 U17 Gold 2021 U17 Silver -Forrest 2022 U17 Silver -Blaze 2023 U17 Gold 2024 U20 Bronze -Duke 2024 U20 Bronze -Mesenbrink 2022 U20 Silver 2023 U20 Gold 2024 U23 Bronze -Haines 2021 U17 7th -Barr 2024 U20 Silver

My bad must have auto corrected on phone, done that a few times..sneaky sneaky phone

USA Wrestling should make this announcement by tomorrow (Friday) based on when it has been announced in the past vs when decisions had to be in. Usually has been decisions by senior national team due on a Monday with announcement following that Friday. This way they have time to ask #2, 3 or even 4 now in the pecking order. I think we will see: 57kg LL - would attempt to become the first american male wrestler to win gold in all 3 U17-U20-U23 age levels. If Penn St decides not to send guys to U23 due to it being during start of college season, then Nico Provo next up. 61kg Jax Forrest - kid seems to want to wrestle in everything. He is entered in to the ranking series with only a couple of days between his series with Vito and that. Speaking of which, this delay makes this decision much more difficult as he clearly does not know if he made the senior team yet. If he turns down I think Blaze will too in which it will go to Nic Bouzakis. 65kg Vince Cornella- doubt Blaze takes this, he likely focuses on U20s. Cornella did make a U20 team a few years back taking 5th. 70kg PJ Duke - he had shown a strong desire to do all 3 we will see if Penn St coaches give him the . If he is a no then Josh Edmond gets the nod 74kg MM -took a bronze last year, lost to the guy Japan had slotted in their senior team this year. He may be a little beat up now but U23s almost 4 full months away. 79kg Dean Hamiti- I don’t see Levi accepting this with him being on senior team and his senior season coming up. I don’t picture Hamiti not taking the spot, why would he not? If not him than Simon Ruiz will. 86kg Rocco Welsh is the guy 92kg Barr - if Penn St sends guys then Barr will be there. It not then Aeoden Sinclair will go. 97kg Grand Valley kid with very long name is the guy 125- Daniel Herrera is the guy

This shows that at least some rules are still set in place and effective when additional year(s) of eligibility are in question. No way Alvarez qualified for a medical in either of those two years Let’s slam the door on the AJ Ferrari has 3 years left now because there is no logical explanation of it being more than 2. Curious to see what the ruling will be with Ono’s eligibility. As much as I don’t like to see Penn St with yet another hammer at their disposal, I do prefer to not see him in a Japan singlet at 61kg vs any of our Americans. Although I do hear that the rep Japan has in Ono’s place this year on their world team is also a beast. Would love to put all this 6-8 year crap to rest. We are now coming to an end of having wrestlers participating in 5 NCAA tournaments (due to 2021 not counting against eligibility). Let’s get back to the good o’le days of 4 seasons in 5 years (outside of IVY 4/4 unless Grey shirt). So much easier to keep track of.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, we are on it!

For U23 it had always been Senior National team members had first dibs on the spot, followed by the U23 champion. This year it was changed in adding the 4th in line for seniors at the weight prior to U23 National Champ. Couple of notes: - Seems obvious but many have asked.:If Jax passes on taking the U23 spot, No..Marcus Blaze cannot accept both the 61kg and 65kg spots for U23. One or the other or neither. -All signs point to Marcus not taking either spot and focusing on winning a U20 World Gold Medal. Blaze earned a bronze last year losing to eventual U20 Gold medalist, and senior champion Ono in the semis 7-2. Rumorville has echoed that the Penn St staff prefers he does focus solely on the U20 Worlds and passes on both U23 spots. -If this is in fact true in regards to the coaches preference..it could be sign for things to come. I am very curious on which NLWC guys accept their U23 dibs on their weights. U23 Worlds runs much later than U20 and even senior worlds -U20s August 20th-24th -Senior’s September 13th-18th -U23’s October 22nd-26th -First official day of NCAA wrestling practice is October 10th, with the first day of competition being November 1st. If they prefer that Blaze does not do U23, it could very well hint that he will be starting at 133 as a true freshman while Ono red shirts. PJ Duke has showed a great interest in competing in all 3 world championships. When asked yesterday on his flo interview about this, he said it had to be discussed with his coaches and family, however he did not rule it out. Furthermore, Kozalk asked him if he would possibly be going to the ranking series coming up. Duke responded that he most likely would not be, and he would rather wrestle in another world championships than do the ranking series as he still hunting for his first world gold medal. So will be interesting to see which of the NLWC accept the U23 spots. MM did last year earning a bronze. Maybe the Penn State coaches prefer just the two freshman pass on it, especially since they’re already competing another world championships. Or maybe they let them decide and rumorville is BS. if they do prefer they pass it obviously isn’t because they don’t want them missing the week of practice… I’m sure it would be more so a concern that they’re peeking you around and because of that won’t be at their best come March whether it be to the physical or mental toll it takes.

Can add Duke to: “lost first match and won series”

And even two more things joke or not, I am answering same way..it was based on bad info. You naming one guy, doesn’t constitute “the Cornell” and their rhetoric. So much comes out of his mouth especially, at times I don’t think the fan base wants to claim him but what can you do? I would hope nobody get worked up about my response. Just was setting the record straight on a topic that has completely gone to a false narrative. Thats all. Don’t let it bother you, it didn’t bother him.

Yeah you are right i didnt know they went to an out of state tournament start of year. Doesnt change anything I said either. Just means that he wrestled even that much more above his weight.

I can appreciate that, my 3 year old acts the same way when he is wrong.

He wrestled 170 this HS season just to try and get better competition, but could have gone 160 if he had needed to. I don’t recall him ever wrestling 175, I know that’s not a weight in NY. Turns out that it didn’t matter much what weight he went as even for him to wrestle 170 this year…a weight much higher than his walk around weight..he went 46-0 with 35 falls 9 tech falls and 2 ffts. Not one of his matches even made it to the half way point of the 2nd period. Stud!

Duke is 5’6” and has been that height for quite sometime.’Indont see him getting that much bigger. Only time will tell.

two things Shapiro was not speaking of Kasak in that Interview. Which makes one wonder why Penn St fans assumed he was He was actually bringing it up because of Johnny Lovett who he discussed after he wrestled the him the year prior as well of having freakish strength for someone at the weight. I wish he had just left it alone, but not everything in wrestling HAS to do with Penn St believe it or not You brougnt my comment to the Kasak "rhetoric" which you speak of .You and you only. Nobody from Cornell talks or cares to talk about Kasak or the accusations which some Penn st fans assume were made by Shapiro about him. Go to any forum and you won't find a bunch of Cornell fans discussing this topic that's for sure. You will help her see a bunch of Penn State fans discussing it. So I will respectively have to disagree with you and say it's people like yourself who knows no bounds in bringing this subject up. I am a Cornell fan yes, and I am allowed to. think that a guy who bumped up to weight classes in one season, and is 20 years old…..likely still growing, may move up another 2 weights 2 years from now. I think thats a pretty reasonable opinion. I can say this without it meaning what your false narrative assumes it to be. If you assumed that Shapiro meant Kasak, or that I in anyway meant PEDs with him moving up in weight...thats a you problem.

I honesly dont see Vito makiing 57 kg again and im starting to think that Yianni’s days may be done at 65kg Vito can be successful at 65kg. The year he won the world title he beat a guy at worlds who teched Nick Lee thay same year at 65kg. If he csn toss on another 6 or 7 lbs even (says he walks arounr at 142) i think he wiol be ok.

idk, if you have a guy who you can ink in as a 3x champ and no reason to mess with it. Duke is 5’6” 70kg is 154 lbs he has to lose about 6 lbs to make it. I dont see him getting much bigger but could see Kasak continuing to ballloon up to 174. i don’t necessarily agree with the idea that MM needs to wrestle 174 in order to be successful at 74kg (163 lbs). Takatani said he weighed 163 lbs after his match with Dake and pretty much walks around at that weight. Dake was cutting hard you are right and he hasnt looked good at all doing it compared to when he was at 79kg. 2026 157- PJ duke Kasak RS 165 MM 174 Haines 2027 157 PJ Duke 165 MM (senior) 174 Kasak

MM is a lifer at 165/74kg He is on the smaller side of the weight class. Its been said by both him and Askren that if he had to, he could have been a 157 pounder. Wpuld have been a cut, but do able. You will see him finish out his college career at 165.

Vito just turned 26 last month. He had a slipped disc in his neck and unfortunately that will always slightly hinder his performance. He has gotten much better with it however. You could clearly see it playout negatively for him in the first two crookham matches with his stance and fear of getting neck jarred. Even at worlds last year there were two specific positions vs Ono that he did not even attempt to defend becuase they were neck related. With this being said, its something that he will get used to and outside of that, he is injury free right now and him and Yianni have beem training hard. They have been bringing in a lot of outside training partners from Japan as well. I think Vito will make the team at 61kg all 3 years of the quad but who knows what lies ahead for him in 2028 in regards to the weight class

Thanks, that’s good stuff

There is only one page there. Can you possibly direct me on where I can find it so i can use in my data base? Thanks!

Why doesn’t it show wrestling in there or am i blind ?

That’s right it’s like the last couple days of December. Then even more of a case of it making the Cut off lol

Southern scuffle is the beginning of January and that makes the deadline of half way point. In 2024 Alvarez wrestled on 1/27, but the year I believe you are questioning is 2023 in which he wrestled in 8 duals which is too many . With or without the tournament that year, 8 duals is too many .

He is not eligible in both 2023 and 2024 for a medical In 2023 he wrestled in 8 duals and midlands which accounts for more than 30% of his teams schedule In 2024, he wrestled as late as 1/27 which is past the midway point To whomever gave an example of someone wrestling at midlands, it’s because Midlands is at the beginning of January. Alvarez wrestled on January 27th in 2024, and again he was fine for the cut off date in 2023 but he wrestled too many matches then

thx for the info As far as the pick up by Iowa, I assume that his eligibility will still have to be approved by NCAA first cause I have not seen or heard anything approving it yet. Iowa is a strange spot. Maybe he goes 157 and Caliendo staying at 165 after all?

Questions for you.. 1-When you say denominator, are you saying that that is the amount of dates that they are saying wrestling teams compete in in order to keep it all the same so it’s not a different # for med shirts (some teams have guys who wrestle 36 matches others 20). 2-When you say 6 dates…examples of this would be….. 6 duals 4 duals, CKLV, Midlands 3 duals, Clarion Open, Journeyman, Scuffle. for example?? Am I understanding that correctly? 3- You first mentioned something about the “timely manner.” Then said the bold part wasn’t true. Is there any kind of understanding of what they mean by timely manner? Thank you so much for all the information you provide in these forums!