BUFFALO, N.Y. — Wyatt Henson (133 pounds) and Lucas Kapusta (149) brought home individual Mid-American Conference Titles and the Lock Haven men’s wrestling team finished second overall after a wild final day at the 2026 MAC Championship on Saturday.

No. 22 Henson, No. 21 Kapusta and Gable Strickland (133) all punched their tickets to Cleveland for the 2026 NCAA DI Men’s Wrestling Championship.

Trailing by over 20 points heading into the second and final day of the MAC Championship, The Haven stormed back to tie champion Rider 100-100, behind two individual champions and nine placewinners.

However, Rider closed out the narrow victory in the final bouts to edge Lock Haven, 102-100.

Lock Haven’s 100 team points came from athletes finishing in first (two), third (one), fourth (two), fifth (one) and sixth (three).

A program-record nine Bald Eagles found their way to the podium.

Second-seeded Kapusta, who already punched his ticket to Cleveland, might have had the win of the tournament after upsetting top-seeded and No. 2 nationally-ranked Caleb Tyus (SIUE) with a thrilling 2-1 decision. Kapusta scored an escape point in the second period before being awarded a penalty point a few seconds later, which served as the match winner. Kapusta gave Tyus his first loss of the season.

Henson won his third straight MAC Individual Championship at 141 and is now second in program history in MAC individual titles. After going 2-0 yesterday to earn a trip to the finals, Henson secured a takedown in overtime to upend the top seed Elijah Griffin (Rider) with a 4-1 sudden victory. Henson is headed to the NCAA Championship for the third straight season.

Fourth-seeded Strickland earned bronze at 133 with a tournament record of 4-1 and a 2-0 mark on Saturday. Strickland earned a trip to the third-place match with a 1-0 decision over Ken State’s Nick Molchak (6th seed), before downing Central Michigan’s Andrew Austin (8th seed) with a 4-1 sudden victory. Strickland punched his fourth-career ticket to the NCAA Championships.

Sam Gautreau, fifth-seeded at 184 pounds, placed fourth after going 3-2 on the weekend. Gautreau recorded a 22-6 tech fall (5:29) over NIU’s Ian Smith to earn a trip to the third-place match. Gautreau’s run ended there, with a 5-1 defeat at the hands of second-seeded Jared McGill (Edinboro).

Hogan, the third seed at 197, also earned a trip to the third-place match with a tech fall victory (16-1, 6:50) in the early session over Edinboro’s Brody Evans (sixth seed). Hogan ultimately finished fourth after dropping a 6-4 decision to Rider’s Brock Zurawski (first seed).

Nick Kunstek went 2-1 on Saturday to wrestle to fifth place at 165. He opened the day with a 7-6 victory over George Mason’s Drew Dickson, before falling to SIUE’s top-seeded Brock Woodcock to head to the fifth-place match. Kunstek went on to win in sudden victory (4-1) over Clarion’s Alejandro Herrera-Rondon (7th seed) to put Lock Haven in a 100-100 deadlock with Rider for the team title.

No. 30 in the country and top-seeded Avery Bassett (174) went 2-0 on Friday before having to bow out of the tournament due to injury. Bassett’s hot start still landed him on the podium as the sixth-place wrestler.

Nick Stampoulos (157) and Kade Sottolona (285) joined Bassett with sixth-place finishes to round out the Bald Eagles on the podium.

Lock Haven has finished in the top-2 at the MAC Championships in four of the previous five seasons.