CLEVELAND — You can change the calendar, change the city and change the lineup, but you can’t change who rules college wrestling.

Penn State won its fifth consecutive NCAA championship Saturday at the 2026 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships at Rocket Arena, clinching it Saturday morning early in Session 5.

The Nittany Lions have won 13 of the past 15 championships, all under Cael Sanderson, and 14 in school history.

The Nittany Lions accumulated 181.5 points, eclipsing the NCAA standard of 177 they set a year ago. Penn State crowned four champions, had two runners-up and eight All-Americans.

Penn State’s six finalists tied the NCAA record. The Nittany Lions now have 65 NCAA champions, 44 in Sanderson’s 17 years as coach.

Luke Lilledahl (125 pounds), Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), Levi Haines (174) and Josh Barr (197) won titles. Shayne Van Ness (149) and Rocco Welsh (184) both fell in the finals. P.J. Duke (157) wrestled back for a third-place finish and Marcus Blaze (133) finished fourth.

Mesenbrink was voted the tournament’s Most Outstanding Wrestler and he won the NCAA’s Most Dominant Wrestler award, averaging 5.04 points per match wrestled. Duke won the Gorrarian Award, presented to the wrestler with the most falls in the least amount of time. He had two in 3:33.

“I think this was an incredible year. Obviously, you know, our minds are with the kids that didn’t reach their goals, and we’re here thinking about, ‘hey, what can we do better? You know, we got to do this better.’ So, we’ve got a lot on our mind right now, but happy for the team,” Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said.

“Just really an incredible group of guys, outstanding year. Our staff is, you know, they’re all unicorns, really. I mean, up and down the lineup, our director of ops (Adam Lynch), our general manager (Clay Steadman), every one of them are, our trainer (Dan Monthley), obviously Cody (Sanderson) and Casey (Cunningham) and Nick Lee and the whole crew. So, we’re very blessed, very grateful,” Sanderson continued.

Oklahoma State, with three champs, a runner-up and eight All-Americans was second with 131 points. Nebraska was third with 100.5 points, two runners-up and seven All-Americans. Iowa claimed the final team trophy, finishing in fourth with 92.5 points, one runner-up and seven All-Americans.

The NCAA decided to start at 141 pounds and end with the 133-pound showdown between freshmen Ben Davino of Ohio State and Jax Forrest of Oklahoma State. So, the Nittany Lions didn’t claim their first title until the fourth match of the night.

Mesenbrink, a three-time All-American and three-time finalist, met Iowa’s Mikey Caliendo for the ninth time in their careers. Mesenbrink had won all eight previous meetings. Mesenbrink made it 9-0 with a thorough beating of the Hawkeye.

The Nittany Lion junior scored four first-period takedowns to open a 12-4 lead after one. He escaped to start the second, scored yet another takedown and earned two stall points to lead 18-4 after two. Caliendo chose top to start the third but Mesenbrink reversed him to end the match in 5:12 by a 20-4 score for his second consecutive championship. The junior finishes the season 27-0 and runs his career mark to 82-1.

Mesenbrink, as he usually is, was philosophical after his win.

“I feel like my ‘why’ this whole season could be summed up into this quote: ‘Sometimes it takes obtaining the goal to realize that the goal was not the thing to be obtained.’ Before I lose you, let me try to explain that. I feel like sometimes we think that becoming a national champion or an Olympic champion, or whatever your goal that you set out to be, making X amount of money or whatever, it’s truly never as fulfilling as you think it is. And it definitely can’t be the thing that you fill your soul and fill your cup with,” Mesenbrink said. “This past year, I had some of the toughest times I’ve ever had in my young life, and besides making the USA team for seniors, I won almost everything that I wanted to. And I think that sums up exactly what I was saying with that quote, that no matter how many wins or things or amount of money or whatever infinite number of something that you can gain, that was not the point of all of it.

“And this year I really, really just wanted to enjoy it. I did not come to do my will, but to do the will of the one who sent me. And that’s kind of a summation of being out there, the people that are around me and this year,” he continued.

Haines ended his career with his third trip to the finals and as a four-time All-American, three-time finalist and two-time champion. He pushed his record against Nebraska’s Christopher Minto to 3-0 this season with a nip-and-tuck 2-1 win over the Husker in the final. An escape in the second and a point for stalling made the difference for the senior, who ends his career with a 99-4 record.

Haines made no apologies for the low-scoring, defensive struggle.

“It’s easy to sit back and say you wish a guy wrestled like that the whole match. But he had a game plan. He followed the game plan. Chris is a tough competitor. So, the match went the way it did. I don’t think I need to go back and change anything,” he said.

“It happened the way it was supposed to. Maybe fans don’t find that super appealing or whatnot, but if you’ve been around wrestling, you kind of understand that high IQ chess match out there with styles and game plans and stuff. So, you can appreciate that match if you’ve been around the sport long enough,” Haines said.

Barr, who lost in the last year’s final hampered by an injured leg, started the scoring in this year’s final with a double-leg takedown with 30 seconds left in the period. He added a reversal in the third and stall point for a 6-3 win.

Despite the loss last year, Barr said that wasn’t his main motivation since then.

“I was motivated, but I think last year being really grateful to be there, and, ending up taking a second or whatever I was grateful for that this year. And it’s not even so much, like I’ve mentioned, improving results or improving awards finishes, whatever it is,” he said.

“It’s improving myself for match to match, and just doing the best I can to serve the Lord. So this is stuff that I’m focused on truly. I’m not motivated to be an NCAA champion. I’m really not. I’m motivated to serve Jesus, be the best I can be every day.”

When Lilledahl and McGowan met in the season-ending dual meet, McGowan strangely refused to engage, instead retreating continuously and was called for stalling five times. Lilledahl won by disqualification.

This time around, McGowan again maintained a defensive posture. Lilledahl carried the action enough to earn a stall point midway through the third period that gave him the 2-1 win.

“Staying patient has been a big thing for me this year, not getting flustered by guys that are trying to keep the exchanges low and keep the scoring low. So just having the ability to stay patient and stay poised in those tight matches is a big skill, and I think I’ve done a better job at that this year than last year. So that was just one of the things that kind of going into this year. I knew I was going to have to maybe sharpen it, and I did that,” Lilledahl said.

And, now that he’s claimed his first title, he said he plans on adding more.

“This year for me, it was, obviously I wanted to win the nationals, but I wanted to put a stamp on, you know that 125 is my weight class for the next two years, and I feel like I’ve done that,” Lilledahl said. “And so next year is just about going out and kind of widening the gap against these guys that are keeping it close.”

Welsh, in his second trip to the finals — he lost to Carter Starocci 2-0 in the 2024 final — came up two points short of a title again. Against Minnesota’s Max McEnelly, he couldn’t hit a clean shot on the Gopher. McEnelly quickly finished a single in the first period and those points held up in a 4-2 decision, handing Welsh his first loss of the year.

Van Ness, in his first final after two third-place finishes, started the match as he has done a lot this year, giving up the first takedown to Stanford No. 10 seed Aden Valencia. The first period ended with the Cardinal leading 3-1.

Valencia escaped to start the second but Van Ness struck with a takedown, but a Valencia escape gave him a 5-4 lead heading into the third. Van Ness escaped and there was no further scoring until the sudden victory period when Valencia converted on a single, which Penn State challenged. But the score was upheld and Valencia won, 8-5, reversing a 10-4 win by Van Ness in December.

With Blaze’s consolation semifinal technical fall and a loss by Oklahoma State’s Troy Spratley, Penn State clinched the team title at 11:22 a.m.

Duke shook off his controversial semifinal loss and stormed back for a third-place finish. First, in the consolation semifinals, he used two takedowns and an escape to decision Kannon Webster of Illinois 7-3. Then, in the third-place bout, he dominated Ohio State’s Brandon Cannon once again, scoring virtually at will on his feet with six takedowns and a two-point nearfall for a 20-4 technical fall in 6:37.

“Man, yeah, definitely hard (the loss). You know, I lost a little bit sleep over it. But, at the end of the day, it’s just God’s plan for me. And, you know, whatever is gonna have is gonna happen,” Duke said. “So, I’m just gonna come forward and represent my family name.”

“I think it just shows a lot of character coming back, wrestling hard in those bouts nobody really wants to wrestle after a tough loss,” he added. “I was raised to where I don’t quit, and my family name is so important to me, so I’m going to carry it forward and just go as hard as I can all the time.”

Blaze rolled up a 20-4 technical fall over Stanford’s Tyler Knox in the consolation semifinals. But, in the third-place match, he couldn’t solve the defensive of Aaron Seidel from Virginia Tech. Seidel rode him the entire second period and then escaped, scored a takedown and got a riding time point for a 5-0 decision.

Sanderson spoke as passionately about the four wrestlers who didn’t win titles as he did the champions.

“It’s just a process, and sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is you got to learn whether you win or lose, but tough losses can change your career for the better and help you make those changes that will help you reach your ultimate goal at the highest level,” he said.

“So, you know, losing is no fun. We hate it. It stinks, and I don’t wish it on anybody, but it’s part of life you get. You just keep fighting, keep getting back up and things will work out.”