NCAA Championships Wrestling

Penn State’s Carter Starocci, a product of Cathedral Prep in Erie, has his hand raised after winning the 174-pound title on Saturday night at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in Kansas City, Mo. It was his fourth national championship. At Cathedral Prep, he went 172-10 and won PIAA titles as a junior and senior and was runner-up as a sophomore. Starocci went 46-0 during his senior year for the Ramblers and was 50-0 as a junior.

 AP

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Aaron Brooks and teammate Carter Starocci capped a historic night for Penn State.

Brooks and Starocci each captured their fourth titles to help the Nittany Lions break the scoring record at the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships on Saturday.

Penn State has now won 11 titles in the past 13 tournaments, and their 172.5 points edged out the 170 scored by Dan Gable’s 1997 Iowa squad.

Starocci joined coach Cael Sanderson as the sixth wrestler to ever win four NCAA Division I titles, and Brooks joined him about a half-hour later.

Less than a month after injuring his knee in the Nittany Lions’ final dual meet, Starocci leaped into assistant coach Casey Cunningham’s arms to celebrate his 2-0 victory over Ohio State’s Rocco Welsh.

“I have no comment on the injury itself. I chose to come out here and wrestle. With that, the mindset is you can’t have any excuses,” Starocci said before adding, “It was a long road. Twelve days ago, I wasn’t even walking.”

Starocci injury defaulted twice in the Big Ten tournament and slipped to the No. 9 seed in the NCAA bracket, making his historic path even more difficult.

Wearing a heavy brace on his right knee, he had to beat NCAA champions Mekhi Lewis of Virginia Tech and Shane Griffith of Michigan on Friday.

“It was a fun tournament,” Starocci said. “There’s nothing I’d rather do now in this life than be here wrestling. I couldn’t be more happy and more grateful.”

Because of the COVID year, Starocci could come back for a fifth season of competition, if he chooses to, but he wasn’t ready to address that on Saturday night.

“I love wrestling. I don’t love school,” he said.

Brooks also won a fourth title, joining Starocci and Sanderson, who went 159-0 at Iowa State from 1999 to 2002. Oklahoma State’s Pat Smith (1990-94), Cornell’s Kyle Dake (2010-13), Ohio State’s Logan Stieber (2012-15) and Cornell’s Yianni Diakomihalis (2018-2023) have each captured four championships.

Brooks dominated previously undefeated Trent Hidlay of North Carolina State in the finals in a 6-1 victory. The Penn State senior scored a takedown with four seconds remaining in the first period, then escaped to start the second for a 4-0 lead. A stalling point and riding time point sealed the victory.

“They both did a great job,” Sanderson said. “Aaron has just been very dominant all year long. Carter had some adversity, which is pretty amazing. He wasn’t able to wrestle the way that he wanted to, but wrestling with the injury that he had was really, really impressive. There’s not a lot of human beings on the planet that would be able to do what he just did, obviously.”

Penn State’s Greg Kerkvliet (285 pounds) and Levi Haines (157) also stood atop the podium as champions.

Kerkvliet scored four takedowns in a 13-4 victory over Michigan’s Lucas Davison. It was the first title for Kerkvliet, who lost to Michigan’s Mason Parris in 2023.

Haines completed an undefeated sophomore season with a 5-0 victory over Arizona State’s Jacori Teemer. The Sun Devil frustrated the crowd by backing up for almost five minutes, then choosing neutral in the third. Haines finally broke through with a double-leg takedown.

Penn State also had two runners-up in Beau Bartlett (141) and Mitchell Mesenbrink (165).

Iowa State’s David Carr captured his second NCAA title with a 9-8 victory over Mesenbrink. Trailing 7-3 in the third period, Mesenbrink battled back to tie the match at 8, but Carr won it on riding-time advantage, which seemed to surprise the Penn State freshman.

Ohio State’s Jesse Mendez used a Granby roll to avoid a takedown and come up with one of his own in the closing seconds of a 4-1 victory over Bartlett.

Also winning titles were Arizona State’s Richard Figueroa (125), Cornell’s Vito Arujau (133), Virginia Tech’s Caleb Henson (149) and Northern Iowa’s Parker Keckeisen.

Penn State 149-pounder Tyler Kasak made a bit of history as well. The true freshman lost his first bout to Stanford’s Jaden Abas on Thursday, then rallied with seven consecutive victories — including a 5-4 win over Forest Hills graduate Jackson Arrington in the blood round take third place.

Kasak’s 3-2 victory over West Virginia’s Ty Watters in the consolation final made him just the ninth wrestler to pull off the feat in 28 years (1996).

Bernie Truax placed fifth at 184 pounds, beating second-seeded Isaiah Salazar 12-2.

ERIC KNOPSNYDER is a freelance journalist who often writes for the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, a CNHI newspaper.

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