Penn State Wrestling shutout Lehigh to open the 2023 season (Photo by Chris Snyder for NittanyCentral)
Penn State Wrestling was back in action Sunday afternoon as they took down the No. 14 ranked Lehigh Mountain Hawks 36-6.
For the Nittany Lions, this was their first home dual meet of the year inside of Rec Hall. Their first home dual, a 45-0 shellacking of No. 16 Oklahoma, was the rare home-opener in the cavernous halls of the Bryce Jordan Center.
Credit – Lloyd McCully
And as always for Penn State Wrestling, home duals in Rec Hall are just different. However the results, well, let’s just say they are usually fairly predictable.
Furthermore, the Nittany Lion faithful in attendance were treated to a handful of great matchups.
So with that, now onto the action!
Penn State Wrestling vs. Lehigh FULL RESULTS
125-157
The dual meet started out at 125, and unfortunately for the Penn State Wrestling fans, they were not able to see a Lilledahl/Seymour rematch. If you remember from last year’s NCAA Championships, it was Seymour who knocked Luke out of the championship bracket.
Nonetheless, all you can do is wrestle the guy thrown out in front on you.
And for both Luke Lilledahl and Marcus Blaze, they started out the dual meet with a bang. Lilledahl finished off a 17-2 technical fall in the second period and Blaze snagged a 19-4 technical fall at the 5:37 mark.
Then at 141, Cael Nasdeo once again filled in for the dinged up Aaron Nagao. And once again Nasdeo put up a good fight.
Even though he dropped the 5-1 decision, Nasdeo repeatedly got deep penetration on his shots. But unfortunately he was not able to power through to land any takedowns.
Shayne Van Ness then righted the ship at for the Nittany Lions as he plowed his way to a 19-5 major decision at 149.
Next up at 157, PJ Duke notched his second ranked match of the year. Leading 14-3 in the final period, Duke tried to lock up a cradle on Rozynski. However PJ wrenched Logan’s right arm/shoulder and the official immediately called a potentially dangerous.
During the reset, Rozynski was clearly in pain. And after a quick injury break, the Lehigh coaching staff decided to not continue with the match.
At the halfway mark in the dual meet, the Nittany Lions were out to a 20-3 lead over Lehigh.
165-285
Coming out of the break was the second ranked matchup of the afternoon.
But I don’t care what number is listed next to “No.” when you’re going up against a rat on a Cheeto. Because he’s always going to give you a battle.
And the Mesenbrink/Brignola matchup lived up to the billing.
Leading 13-3 going into the final period, it looked like Mitchell Mesenbrink was going to cruise to another technical fall. But Brignola continued to fight hard and he landed a takedown midway through the period.
Additionally, this was the first takedown Mesenbrink had surrendered this season. However he broke free and settle back in.
Mitchell wasn’t able to land any additional takedowns and he ultimately won a 15-7 major decision.
Then at 174, Levi Haines made quick work of his counterpart. Halfway through the first period Haines locked up a bow and arrow. He then continued to push the action and forced Sadriddinov’s back to the mat.
Following the four swipes for near fall, Levi readjusted and with 45 seconds remaining in the first period the referee slapped the mat for the fall.
Rocco Welsh made his Rec Hall debut for Penn State Wrestling at 184.
And he picked up both his first Rec Hall win and his first ranked win on the year. But it wasn’t a stroll in the park as Welsh secured the winning takedown with less than 30 seconds in the match.
Regardless, a win is a win!
And in the final two matches of the dual, the Mirasola twins split their matches to close out the dual.
Connor won a decision in his match and Cole dropped a super tough bout against the seventh ranked wrestler in the nation.
No. 14 Lehigh 6 No. 1 Penn State 36
125 – No. 2 Luke Lilledahl (PSU) tech. fall over Logan Wadle (LEH) 17-2, LEH 0 PSU 5
133 – No. 11 Marcus Blaze (PSU) tech. fall over Mason Ziegler (LEH) 19-4, LEH 0 PSU 10
141 – Carter Bailey (LEH) dec. over Cael Nasdeo (PSU) 5-1, LEH 3 PSU 10
149 – No. 1 Shayne Van Ness (PSU) major dec. over Owen Reinsel (LEH) 19-5, LEH 3 PSU 14
157 – No. 15 PJ Duke (PSU) injury forfeit over No. 10 Logan Rozynski (LEH) 5:46, LEH 3 PSU 20
165 – No. 1 Mitchell Mesenbrink (PSU) major dec. over No. 7 Max Brignola (LEH) 15-7, LEH 3 PSU 24
174 – No. 1 Levi Haines (PSU) fall over Bekhruz Sadriddinov (LEH) 2:15, LEH 3 PSU 30
184 – No. 4 Rocco Welsh (PSU) dec. over No. 23 Rylan Rogers (LEH) 4-2, LEH 3 PSU 33
197 – Connor Mirasola (PSU) dec. over Remy Brancato-Roed (LEH) 8-3, LEH 3 PSU 36
285 – No. 7 Nathan Taylor (LEH) dec. over No. 10 Cole Mirasola (PSU) 7-2, LEH 6 PSU 36
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Nittany Lion Notes, What’s Next for Penn State Wrestling?
Penn State Wrestling moves to 3-0 on the season and they push their dual meet unbeaten streak to 74 in a row.
Cael Sanderson adds yet another feather to his Nittany Lion cap as his career record ascends to 221-16-2. On a side note, that’s an absurd winning percentage of 92.4% for those of you scoring at home.
Penn State Wrestling gets a bit of a breather as their next dual meet is a week down the road.
And speaking of “down the road”, the Nittany Lions make the super convenient trip to Laramie Wyoming where they take on the Cowboys next Saturday (12/13/25) night. The dual meet is set to start at 8:00pm EST and at this point it doesn’t look like it will be broadcast anywhere. However, you can always tune into Ironhead Byers’ audio broadcast through gopsusports.com.
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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.
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