Penn State Wrestling Has a 'Superstar in the Making' in PJ Duke

Duke, who recently won a U20 national title, appeared simultaneously confident and stunned after finishing the second-period takedown in the decisive match. He punctuated the win with a back flip, releasing what Duke thought was an advantage over Diakomihalis.

"Those exchanges wore him out a little bit," Duke told reporters at Final X after the match. "The more wrestling that happened, the better it was for me. I caught him on his back, and it was a wrap."

Diakomihalis initially looked to wrap the series early. He dominated Duke for a 10-0 technical fall in the first match and led their second match 9-2. But as Duke said, he kept the match going, which proved to work in his favor. Duke hit a pair of four-point moves to rally for a 17-10 win and force the decisive match. At that point, he looked toward his father.

"It's tough to lose when I'm looking at my dad in the corner and I know how much he puts in for me," Duke said in his post-match interview. "I'm never going to look at my father in the corner, and think about him in my head, and quit in a match. Those dog moments in a match where you've got to push, it's just something that's in me."

Duke also drew motivation from an interview that Diakomihalis did with FloWrestling the day before Final X. Duke looked up to Diakomihalis, a four-time NCAA champion at Cornell, as a mentor. He trained with Diakomihalis' younger brother. In the FloWrestling interview, Diakomihalis discussed their relationship, how thoroughly he had scouted Duke and his approach for the series.

"There's a trap with wrestling high school kids [to say], 'Oh, he's a high school kid,' but he's really the No. 2 guy in America," Diakomihalis said in the FloWrestling interview. "... I'm going to go in there and try to mangle him, try to maul him, for sure. It's going to be a really intense match. That's my plan, at least. I'm going to try my best to take it to him."

A part of that interview stuck with Duke, who won the Junior Hodge Trophy as the nation's top high school wrestler. He turned that into a motivator.

"That first match, I didn't wrestle my best," Duke said. "It's a feel match. I didn't doubt myself once. I went back out there and got it done. I saw an interview with Flo [where] Yianni said he was going to mangle me. I took that personally. I'm not going to let that slide. He's a good mentor to me, but I worked too hard to be mangled."

At Penn State, Duke likely will wrestle at 157 pounds, a weight class currently manned by two-time All-American Tyler Kasak. Penn State wrestling coach Cael Sanderson has an intriguing lineup decision to make for next season, when the Nittany Lions will pursue their fifth consecutive NCAA title.

Before that, however, Duke will compete in two world championships during his first few months on campus at Penn State. In addition to Senior Worlds, Duke has qualified for the U20 Worlds in August in Bulgaria.

"I've been trying to prove people wrong the whole time," Duke told reporters at Final X. "I'm sure there will be people saying, 'He's only 18, he's too young for Senior level,' but that's what they said here, and it didn't go too well for them. I'm just going to keep working. ... I'm off to a great place [at Penn State], and I think I'm ready for the best in the world."