Mitchell Mesenbrink Previews Big Season at Penn State With World Title

Mesenbrink is one of seven Nittany Lions competing at the U23 World Championships, and two of his teammates will compete for gold medals Sunday. Luke Lilledahl (57 kg) and Levi Haines (79 kg) advanced to their respective finals.

Freshman PJ Duke, a U20 world champ, will compete for bronze at 70 kg. Penn State's Josh Barr, a returning NCAA runner-up, did not wrestle in the repechage after sustaining an injury in Friday's quarterfinals.

For Mesenbrink, the U23 world title reset his freestyle career after two disappointments. He lost in the U23 final at the 2024 tournament and then lost to David Carr in his attempt to make the 2025 U.S. Senior World team.

Mesenbrink channeled that energy into the U23 worlds. He reached the semifinals with a pin and two technical falls, then beat a reigning world champ to advance to the final. Mesenbrink scored a last-second takedown to defeat Yoshinosuke Aoyagi of Japan 7-4. Ayoagi recently won the Senior World freestyle title at 70 kg.

"I think the big thing of not making the world team was just, I got to get better in those specific areas," Mesenbrink told reporters in Serbia, according to UWW. "That's the most fun part. I thought this is all this is, is a title. This is gonna be fading so quick. So I thought I'm going to go out there and I'm going to work on the things that I've been working on and I've been working really hard since Final X to get those improvements."

Mesenbrink produced one of the top performances in college wrestling last year, going 27-0 at 165 pounds to win his first NCAA title. The rising junior, a two-time NCAA finalist, scored 18 technical falls last season before defeating Iowa's Mikey Caliendo 8-2 in the championship match.

In two seasons at Penn State, Mesenbrink is 53-1, and his .981 winning percentage represents the best career start of any Nittany Lions wrestler. He has recorded bonus points in 40 of those wins. FloWrestling ranks Mesenbrink as the nation's No. 1 overall wrestler entering the 2025-26 season.

Penn State's Lilledahl, Haines reach finals

Haines, who won silver at Senior Worlds in September, seeks to claim more hardware this freestyle season. The 2024 NCAA champ went 3-0 with a technical fall and two seven-point decisions. He will face Ibrahim Yaprak of Turkey in the 79 kg final.

Lilledahl, an NCAA All-American as a freshman, went 3-0 at 57 kg, including a 10-0 technical decision in his opener. Lilledahl will wrestle Yuta Kikuchi of Japan in the final. It will be Lilledahl's fifth age-group world final. He won a U20 world title in 2024 and a U17 championship in 2022.

Duke, competing in his third world championships of the year, won his first two bouts before falling 14-4 to Kanan Heybatov of Azerbaijan in the semifinals. Duke seeks to get on the podium Sunday after recently winning a U20 world title.

Penn State's Marcus Blaze (65 kg) and Rocco Welsh (86 kg) begin competition Sunday at the U23 World Championships.