EVANSTON, Ill. — Penn State was pushed for a time in the team race, lost some individual bouts it thought it would win, but in the end, the Nittany Lions ruled the 2025 Big Ten Wrestling Championships on Sunday at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

Penn State set a team record with 181.5 points, outdistancing second-place Nebraska and its 137. Five Nittany Lions were crowned champions — Luke Lilledahl (125), Tyler Kasak (157), Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), Levi Haines (174) and Carter Starocci (184) — and Greg Kerkvliet (285) was a runner-up.

Beau Bartlett (141) and Shayne Van Ness (149) finished third. Braeden Davis (133) finished fourth and Josh Barr (197) had to settle for a sixth-place finish after he was injured and couldn’t continue.

Penn State’s team total was fourth-most in Big Ten tournament history. In addition, Cael Sanderson was named Big Ten Coach of the Year and Carter Starocci was named Wrestler of the Year.

In spite of all of that success, Sanderson didn’t seem exactly overjoyed.

“I think the guys wrestled well. The guys finished strong today. We have, obviously, it’s always a process, always trying to get better. And we’ve got some things we can do between now and Philly,” he said.

Sanderson tied Michigan’s Cliff Keen with the most all-time Big Ten titles as a coach with nine. Iowa’s Dan Gable heads the list with 21. Penn State moved into sole possession of sixth place on the all-time team Big Ten titles won list with nine. Iowa (37), Illinois (17), Indiana (13), Michigan (12) and Minnesota (10) comprise the top five.

Lilledahl snatched a low single and converted on Nebraska’s Caleb Smith with 39 seconds left in the first period of his finals match and rode him out. He tacked on a second-period escape. Smith could only muster an escape and two points on marginal stall calls to set the 4-3 final.

“I think obviously if you can score, score. So that opportunity just presented itself, and I took it. There wasn’t really many opportunities after that and that’s kind of the way the match went,” the Nittany Lion freshman said.

Lilledahl performed better than he has all season in making the finals, posting three consecutive bonus point wins. He started with a fall in 4:09 and followed with 11-1 and 12-4 major decisions, the latter coming against No. 1 seed Matt Ramos in the semifinals.

“I think confidence in myself, and confidence in my training and my coaches,” Lilledahl said of how he unleashed his offense. “Just knowing that they’re the best coaches in the world. And you know, obviously they have a plan. So, if I follow that plan, it’s probably a pretty good plan.”

Kasak started slowly, with a 7-3 quarterfinal win before decking Nebraska’s Antrell Taylor in 1:18 in the semifinals. In the finals, he was engaged in a tight match with Ohio State’s Brandon Cannon. Leading 4-2, but having just been hit for stalling and ceding a point, Kasak countered a Cannon shot, pancaking the Buckeye to his back for a big seven-point move that removed any doubt in what would end a 12-2 major decision.

“This is something I love to do. I love wrestling. I love to compete. I love to win. I love to dominate. I love getting bonus points. And I love hyping up these guys right here. It’s so special,” Kasak said.

“Everything I’m doing right now is special, and I’m part of history. There’s never going to be a team in any sport in the NCAA that is going to be as good as this team’s been.”

Mesenbrink wrestled only one bout to reach the finals. He received a one-second injury default win in the quarterfinals. Then, in the semifinals, Michigan’s Beau Mantanona took him down for the first time all season. Mesenbrink then unleashed an offensive barrage to overwhelm the Wolverine 25-8 in 6:29.

In the finals against Iowa’s Mikey Caliendo, someone he’d beaten four times, this was the closest finish of the series and the season. Mesenbrink converted a single-leg takedown with 11 seconds left in the first period and added an escape in what was a 4-1 decision and his second consecutive Big Ten title.

Mesenbrink compared wrestling an opponent multiple times to playing chess.

“I think there’s, there’s different ways to play chess. So, you brought up chess. There’s sometimes a lot of strategery, but then some other grand masters, they just go out and, like, I keep saying, bring it. They just let the board kind of be in jumbles, and that’s gonna show who wins. I feel like that’s more representative of how we wrestle. It’s like, go out, let chaos ensue, and just go,” he said.

Haines was relatively untested in making the finals, scoring a fall in 5:58 in the quarterfinals and then a 10-3 win in the semifinals. That trend continued in the finals against Nebraska’s Lenny Pinto. Haines finished off a takedown with four seconds left in the first for a 3-0 lead. In the second, he escaped, scored another takedown and then turned Pinto for four back points to open an 11-1 lead. He rode Pinto the entire third period to amass 3:24 in riding time

Starocci was dominant in his march to the finals, posting an 18-1 technical fall and then a 12-2 major decision. He was pushed to the limit in the final against Minnesota redshirt freshman sensation Max McEnelly.

McEnelly struck first, converting a slick single leg in the first period, but Starocci eventually escaped. Starocci escaped and scored a takedown in the second to open a 5-3 lead. McEnelly, though, crucially escaped before the end of the period to close the gap to 5-4. The Gopher chose bottom and escaped to tie the match at 5-5 and neither wrestler could find an opening. The match went to sudden victory tied 5-5.

In overtime, McEnelly shot and Starocci countered for the winning takedown in an 8-5 decision and his third Big Ten title. Starocci seemed to indicate that he could see the outcome meant more to him than McEnelly.

“When it gets deep, you can look into your opponent’s eyes, and you can kind of feel them soften up a little bit. You’re just kind of seeing how far they’re willing to go,” he said.

“Some guys look at it as just a sport and I’m here to go to school, get a degree, and things like that. But for me, it’s much more than that. It’s soul for soul out there. It’s my 24 hours vs. your 24 hours. It’s my coaching staff versus yours. It’s my training partner versus yours. It’s my dad versus your dad. That’s kind of how I look at.”

Kerkvliet cruised into the finals with a fall in 1:54 and then a 9-1 semifinal win. But against Olympic gold medalist and two-time NCAA champion Gable Steveson of Minnesota, he couldn’t find any offense. Steveson scored a takedown in each period and added a point for 1:52 in riding time to earn a 10-3 win.

Bartlett earned his third-place finish with a 4-2 decision over Ohio State’s Jesse Mendez in what many thought would be a 1 vs. 2 finals matchup. Bartlett countered a Mendez takedown by stepping over, isolating the chin and grabbing the Buckeyes’ thigh to go around behind for the winning takedown with 39 seconds left in the match.

Bartlett notched a 13-3 major decision in the quarterfinals and was then upset 5-3 by Minnesota’s Vance Vombaur in the semifinals. He rebounded with a 4-2 consolation semifinal win.

Like Bartlett, Van Ness posted a quarterfinal major decision and was then upset in the semifinals, being taken down in the waning seconds and falling to Illinois’ Kannon Webster 4-2. He rebounded with a 12-1 consolation semifinal win. He thoroughly dominated Iowa’s Kyle Parco in the third-place bout, rolling to a 13-0 major decision.

After an 11-2 opening-round win, Davis dropped a last-minute 3-1 decision to drop into the consolation bracket. From there he peeled off a 17-2 technical fall and then 10-5 and 9-7 decisions to get into the third-place bout. Against Ohio State’s Nic Bouzakis, Davis grabbed an early lead but after a furious scramble, Bouzakis emerged on top with Davis on his back. The Buckeye got the fall in 2:23 and Davis had to settle for a fourth-place finish.

Barr, who qualified for the NCAA tournament after earning a trip to the semifinals, saw a disappointing end to his tournament. In a consolation semifinal bout with Minnesota’s Isaiah Salazar, Barr sustained what looked like a lower left leg injury and had to default. He medically forfeited his next match to finish sixth. He had rolled to a 17-2 technical fall in 4:05 and then was nipped in sudden victory, 4-1 by Michigan’s Jacob Cardenas in the semifinals.

Barr did not appear on the awards podium with the rest of the 197-pounders.

“We sent him out of there, but he walked out on his own,” Sanderson said of Barr. “He’s got to get optimistic for the nationals, but we’re very optimistic.”

The 2025 NCAA Championships are scheduled for March 20-22 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. That same venue was when the Penn State dynasty under Sanderson started in 2011.