Penn State wrestling: Nittany Lions freshman surging in latest polls

Penn State wrestling has raced out to a 3-0 start this season in dominant fashion. The Nittany Lions are fresh off a 36-3 win over No. 18 Oregon State that featured a strong showing by a trio of freshmen. Now, one of those freshmen, Mitchell Mesenbrink, has moved into the top 10 of the latest rankings for his weight class.

Mitchell Mesenbrink moves into top 10 at 165

Mitchell Mesenbrink has moved up two spots in the latest InterMat rankings this week to No. 10 at 165 pounds.

Mesenbrink is coming off an upset win in his last match, where he scored a 17-2 tech fall at the 3:46 mark over then-No. 10 Matthew Olguin of Oregon State.

The redshirt freshman improved to 10-0 on the season and has scored bonus points in 80% of his matches so far. Mesenbrink opened the season No. 17 in the country and has slowly been climbing up the ranks each week.

Freshman Penn State wrestler has postseason potential

Friday night was the rising star’s biggest win of the season to date, and the young wrestler is starting to look like he could be a contender for All-American status this season. It is looking more likely that Mitchell Mesenbrink may contribute more to the Penn State wrestling team’s score during the Big Ten and NCAA Championships than originally anticipated.

However, a national title at 165 is highly unlikely, given the dominance of defending champion Keegan O’Toole (Missouri). Additionally, incredible wrestlers like Izzak Olejnik (Oklahoma State), Julian Ramirez (Cornell), and 2023 runner-up David Carr (Iowa State) are all competing for the title this year.

But impressively, Mitchell Mesenbrink is the only freshman ranked in the top 18 at 165. The only other non-upperclassman ahead of him is Mikey Caliendo from Iowa. That gives a pretty strong indication of how deep this weight class is and just how good Mesenbrink has been so far this season.

Obviously, the competition is going to ramp up in Big Ten play with higher-quality opponents, but the start to the season is already better than most predicted for the young star Mesenbrink.

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