Arrowhead High School alumnus Mitchell Mesenbrink put a bow on his sophomore wrestling season at Penn State, finishing the year 27-0 and claiming the NCAA Division I championship at 165 pounds.
Mesenbrink, the son of longtime Arrowhead wrestling coach John Mesenbrink, landed an 8-2 victory over Mike Caliendo of Iowa in the final Saturday. After finishing as runner-up in 2024, the transfer from Cal Baptist earned one of the two national titles by Nittany Lions wrestlers.
Penn State also won the national team title with a record-setting 179 points, eclipsing its own record of 172.5, set last year. Mesenbrink was joined atop the podium by teammate Carter Starocci, who won the 184-pound championship.
John Mesenbrink and Ben Askren, a two-time NCAA champion at Missouri, were both on hand to celebrate with Mitchell at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. John Mesenbrink and Askren, who went on to wrestle in the Olympics before a mixed martial arts career, co-founded the Askren Wrestling Academy that has bolstered Milwaukee-area wrestlers since it opened in 2011.
Look no further than the finals of the NCAA championships to see the growth of regional wrestling.
Another Arrowhead alumnus, Keegan O'Toole, fell in the 174-pound title match in sudden victory to Dean Hamiti of Oklahoma State. The upset nonetheless left O'Toole as a five-time All-American, with two national championships achieved in 2022 and 2023. Last year, he took third.
Starocci's win in the 184 final came against Nicolet High School alumnus Parker Keckeisen, now with Northern Iowa, by a narrow 4-3 decision. Keckeisen went 31-0 last year to win the championship.
Stephen Buchanan of Loyal wins for Iowa
Competing at 197 pounds, former Loyal High School wrestler Stephen Buchanan of Iowa landed a 5-2 decision over Penn State's Josh Barr for a national championship.
A two-time WIAA state champion, Buchanan finished the year 21-1, with two of those wins over Barr. He previously wrestled for Oklahoma and Wyoming, earning All-American status three previous occasions but never higher than third place (twice) at the NCAA championships.
The University of Wisconsin's Zan Fugitt, a native of Missouri, took fourth at 133 pounds. Matty Bianchi (Two Rivers) took seventh for Little Rock at 157 pounds. Gavin Drexler (Stratford) took eighth for North Dakota State at 149 pounds.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Two Wisconsinites win first NCAA Division I wrestling titles
