Penn State Wrestling: Key Takeaways from 2025 B1G Championships
Penn State Wrestling put together a masterful performance this past weekend in winning their third straight B1G Championship team title.
However, if you listened to the thoughts of a handful of Nittany Lion supporters on social media, then you would have thought the sky was falling. Thankfully these comments were few and far between.
And look, I get it. What Cael Sanderson has built in Happy Valley is the true definition of “Unrivaled.” So, I can understand how people can expect certain outcomes. Especially considering the record-breaking success this coaching staff and roster have had recently.
But two things need to be considered when looking at what transpired last weekend.
The first is the fact it was the 2025 B1G Wrestling Championships and not the 2025 NCAA Wrestling Championships.
There’s a huge difference there.
Now I’m not going to completely diminish the meaning of the B1G’s. Because they certainly mean “something”. However I want to point out that they aren’t the ultimate goal inside of that wrestling room.
The second fact is that we’re talking about D1 B1G wrestling. And as I’ve said many times before, wrestling is not easy. At all.
Sometimes things happen on the mat you weren’t expecting. And sometimes these things lead to losses.
No big deal. It happens.
So at this point, I’d like to slap together my key takeaways from Saturday and Sunday. And to make things even more fun, I’m going to go with the standard “G”, “B”, and “U” format.
You know the one I’m talking about, right?
“G” stands for …
Penn State Wrestling – “Good”
Credit – Lloyd McCully
2025 B1G Champions
125 – Luke Lilledahl
157 – Tyler Kasak
165 – Mitchell Mesenbrink
174 – Levi Haines
184 – Carter Starocci
2025 B1G Runner Up
285 – Greg Kerkvliet
The Nittany Lions advanced a total of six guys into the finals in their respective brackets.
And the last time I checked, going 5-1 in the finals in the B1G is pretty damn “good” in my book.
Credit – Lloyd McCully
2025 B1G Team Scoring
- Penn State 181.5
- Nebraska 137.0
- Iowa 112.0
- Minnesota 108.5
- Illinois 105.5
The 181.5 points that Penn State Wrestling put up last weekend represents the most points ever scored in a conference tournament in program history.
Read that again.
The most points scored. Ever.
The next closest was the 170.5 points they had in last year’s B1G’s.
Case closed.
And now the “B” stands for …
Penn State Wrestling – “Better believe those results were good!”
2025 B1G 3rd Place Finishers
141 – Beau Bartlett
149 – Shayne Van Ness
2025 B1G 4th Place Finisher
133 – Braeden Davis
Was it surprising when Beau Bartlett lost a close match in the semifinals to Vance Vombaur?
Sure.
But the lost didn’t affect Beau one bit.
He promptly took care of Rutgers’ Joseph Olivieri in the consolations and then took down OSU’s Jesse Mendez for the second straight time this year. To me, those results speak louder than his loss in the championship bracket.
Same thing goes for Shayne Van Ness.
He shook off a tough loss to Illinois’ Kannon Webster in the semis and proceeded to go on a tear in the wrestlebacks.
There he clobbered Rutgers’ Andrew Clark with a 12-1 major decision. And then SVN followed that up with a 13-0 blowout against Kyle Parco in the third place match.
Again, those results are more important to me.
As for Braeden Davis, I didn’t expect him to lose in the quarterfinals. But based on his lingering injury issues, it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise.
Now, one thing that was a bit of a surprise was the heater Davis went on in the consolation bracket.
There he went 3-0 while outscoring the competition 35-8. This then led to a matchup against No. 3 Braxton Brown (MD), where the winner would make the third place match.
Davis kept his foot on the pedal for the early portion of the match. And to his credit, he hung on for the 9-7 win.
Did it matter he got pinned in the third place match? Nope. Not one bit.
Davis did enough in the prior four matches to show that he can still compete with the best in the nation two weeks from now.
Which then leads us to: The “U” stands for …
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Penn State Wrestling – “Unlucky”
Credit – Lloyd McCully
Unless you’ve been living in a city-sized underground cave run by mysterious billionaires in Colorado, then you probably already know what I’m about to talk about.
Along with the fact that wrestling is hard, it’s also unpredictable. Injuries just happen. And Josh Barr is no exception to this.
I’m pretty sure that if Luke Lilledahl ripped the Doritos bag from my hands and had me wrestle for 15 seconds, that it wouldn’t be pretty. Along with not being pretty, I would also most likely dislocate both of my shoulders, tear my hamstring from the bone, and need a backiotomy in the end.
And no matter how much training and hard work you put in the wrestling room, eventually back luck may strike on the mat.
Which is exactly what happened to Josh Barr in his match against Isaiah Salazer in the wrestlebacks.
Any injures at this point are detrimental considering there are less than 14 days between now and the start of the 2025 NCAA Championships. But that’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
I’ll say this though, the Penn State Wrestling coaching staff and medical staff do an unbelievable job in keeping their wrestlers healthy. Even to the point that I think it they’re a little under-recognized for this.
It seems like guys drop like flies in programs around the country. Not so much in Happy Valley.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. So let’s just chalk up this injury to being “unlucky”.
Besides, there is a glimmer of hope that Barr can lace’em up in the NCAA’s.
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Education: Penn State University
Location: State College, PA
Even though he had no prior journalism experience, Chris has now covered Penn State Wrestling and Penn State Football for the past three years, including as the Penn State Wrestling Beat Writer for VictoryBellRings.com, part of the FanSided network.
And it's clear he also likes constant torture as he's been a PSU Basketball fan for way too long.
Several years back, Chris made the seamless transition from PGA Professional to computer programmer and thoroughly enjoys following and writing about all things related to Penn State sports during his spare time.