Pair of Penn State wrestlers rise up rankings ahead of Big Ten Championships

Penn State wrestling capped off its fifth consecutive undefeated season with a dominant 50-3 win over American last Friday. The Nittany Lions pushed their win streak to 71 straight and are primed for more success in the postseason. As a result of last weekend’s action, a pair of young Nittany Lions found themselves moving up the national rankings in the final week of the regular season.

Penn State true freshman returns to All-American status

Luke Lilledahl is back inside the cutoff to earn All-American honors this postseason, sitting at No. 8 after dropping two spots a week ago.

The true freshman improved to 16-2 on the season, most recently defeating Coen Bainey by a 20-3 decision last Friday night at Rec Hall. Lilledahl has been about as good as advertised this season after entering as the No. 1 overall recruit for the class of 2024. He currently has a 61.11% bonus.

Lilledahl is more than capable of redeeming his two losses from earlier in the season. Both came on the road, first to No. 11 Dean Peterson (Rutgers) 4-1 and then via pin to No. 21 Brendan McCrone (Ohio State) after leading the dual 6-2.

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There’s still plenty of time for Lilledahl to improve his NCAA seeding when Penn State wrestling heads to Evanston for next weekend’s Big Ten Championships. According to InterMat, the Nittany Lion newcomer is the third highest-ranked Big Ten wrestler at 125 behind No. 1 Matt Ramos (Purdue) and No. 7 Caleb Smith (Nebraska). Lilledahl beat Smith 4-2 in Lincoln the first time that the two met.

If the star true freshman can make a deep run to the conference finals, it would solidify him as one of the top seeds for NCAAs. Even a loss to Ramos in the final round wouldn’t hurt his resume too much. With how much Lilledahl has progressed over the season, it would be interesting to see how he performs against top competition.

Braeden Davis moves up once again

Penn State 133-pounder Braeden Davis. © Peter Ackerman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Despite remaining in the top 10 throughout, Braeden Davis has jumped all around the rankings this season. The sophomore 133-pounder rose again this week, coming in at No. 6 in the latest InterMat rankings.

Nagged by injuries, Davis holds an 8-3 record heading into the Big Ten Championships. The conference tournament will be familiar territory for the young Nittany Lion, who won the 125-pound belt last season and earned the top seed for the NCAA Championships.

Davis isn’t a wrestler who will punish opponents with scoring. He has only a 27.7% bonus this season, and eight of his eleven matches have been decided by seven points or less. His losses are to some of the best wrestlers in the country, including No. 1 Ryan Crookham (Lehigh) and No. 3 Lucas Byrd (Illinois). Only an upset loss to No. 16 Jacob Van Dee (Nebraska) would have shocked anyone trying to predict Davis’s record before the start of the season.

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