NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Two-time NCAA champion Mitchell Mesenbrink of Penn State has been named winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s top men’s college wrestler.
WIN Magazine, which compiles the results, made the announcement Monday.
Penn State has had six wrestlers win a total of eight Hodge trophies. Mesenbrink, a junior 165-pounder from Hartland, Wisconsin, received 61 of 65 first-place votes from a committee of retired coaches, heads of each national wrestling organization, media members and past Hodge winners. Mesenbrink also won the Hodge fan vote by a wide margin.
Mesenbrink was 27-0 this past season with eight pins, 11 technical falls, six major decisions and one victory via forfeit. He had 17 wins over wrestlers who competed in the NCAA Tournament, including nine against wrestlers who earned All-America status at 165.
He earned technical-fall wins in the NCAA semifinals, against Columbia’s Cesar Alvan, and in the championship match, against Iowa’s Michael Caliendo.
Mesenbrink said he goes into every match looking to rack up as many bonus points as he can.
“I cannot stand watching wrestling when it is boring,” Mesenbrink said. “People want to be entertained. I don’t want to wrestle in a way where I would get up and leave as the viewer. I don’t want to wonder or be left with regret about what if I would have went harder or tried to shoot more or tried a little harder on top or bottom. That is how I want to live the rest of my life. If you work as hard as you can and there’s nothing left to wonder, you can sleep at night even if you don’t get what you wanted.”
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