Why Penn State wrestler Mitchell Mesenbrink is tough, dominant — and one of a kind

As blood rushed from Mitchell Mesenbrink’s forehead, his teammates watching alongside the mat last month in Ann Arbor grew uneasy.

They couldn’t remember the last time they saw a cut this bad, a wide-open gash just above Mesenbrink’s eyes, leaking through his field of vision, onto his opponent and all over the mat.

“When our trainer pulled his hair up and it kind of pulled his skin, it was pretty nasty,” Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said.

The pain didn’t faze Mesenbrink. It didn’t matter that his sight was obscured, first by the blood and then by the hefty wrap fashioned quickly during a stoppage by trainer Dan Monthley.

With his left eye all but sealed shut, Mesenbrink added another easy takedown to finish off Michigan’s Justin Gates by technical fall, 20-4 in 6:34. Just over a month since that match, Mesenbrink has gotten used to the tight wrap of athletic tape protecting his stitched-together forehead.

Penn State’s star 165-pounder — the defending Big Ten and NCAA champion at the weight — shrugged off the wound earlier this week. He can’t remember how many stitches it took to close the cut over his eye. It doesn’t matter with the postseason looming, as Mesenbrink knows from experience no one who makes a deep run comes out unscathed even if they’re as slick as Penn State’s amiable junior.

“He’s a quick healer,” Sanderson said. “And he’s Mitchell, so he’ll keep doing what he does.”

That’s bad news for the rest of the field at 165.

Mesenbrink will enter this weekend’s Big Ten tournament as the undisputed No. 1 seed at his weight class. He hasn’t lost since falling to then-sixth-year senior David Carr in the 2024-25 NCAA finals. He has won nearly every match he’s wrestled since then with a breakneck pace that is nearly impossible to defend or counter.

The former Arrowhead High School (Wisconsin) star leads the Nittany Lions with 78 dual-meet points scored, is tied for the team lead in wins with 19, leads the team with 11 four-point turns and has forced 12 stalling penalties.

Furthermore, Mesenbrink has won 39 of his last 43 matches — not including opponents forfeiting — with bonus points. That includes 25 technical falls, eight pins and six major decisions.

His track record thus far has him as the frontrunner for the Hodge Trophy — college wrestling’s Heisman — according to WrestleStat’s Hodge Watch, which factors in a wrestler’s rating, win percentage, his team’s strength of schedule and his opponent’s ranking.

The latter means little to Mesenbrink, who had to punch up his resume to get where he’s at now.

“I don’t even look at the bracket,” Mesenbrink said. “Even after I wrestle I don’t look at the bracket. So it’s whoever steps out there. Let’s go.”

Getting to Happy Valley

For a wrestler who makes a brutal-looking sport appear so effortless, that might come off as careless. Mesenbrink, a psychology major who plays multiple musical instruments and is among the most well-read student-athletes on campus, is anything but.

“He loves philosophy, he loves just discussing all things, the meaning of life, this, that, whatever, just good stuff,” Sanderson said. “He’s a lot of fun to have around.”

In another timeline, however, the Nittany Lions may not have gotten him.

Mesenbrink, who won three straight Wisconsin high school championships wrestling for Randy Ferrell at Arrowhead, struggled against stronger competition for a large portion of 2021, his junior season where college coaches were watching with critical eyes.

After having success in previous years in Fargo, North Dakota, at the Junior and 16U Nationals — the largest open freestyle tournament in the world — Mesenbrink failed to reach the podium in the summer of 2021.

Mesenbrink followed that with a disappointing seventh-place finish in folkstyle at the Super 32 tournament in North Carolina.

In the meantime, he had committed to wrestle for Cal Baptist, but he felt like he could do much more.

“I know that time when he came out of Fargo and did not All-American that year, I know that was a rough time for him because he was expecting some pretty big things,” Ferrell said.

Mesenbrink used his disappointment as motivation. He hooked up with longtime friend, Missouri wrestling star and mixed martial arts fighter Ben Askren. He became one of Askren’s top pupils in the Askren Wrestling Academy, where his father John Mesenbrink was also a coach.

Under Askren’s tutelage, Mesenbrink jumped levels almost overnight, thanks largely to the engine that powers his fast-paced style now.

The attacks he could now throw at opponents from different angles made him that much tougher to defend on his feet. It paved the way for freestyle stardom as Mesenbrink won gold at the 2022 U20 Pan-American Championships in Mexico and the 2023 U20 World Championships, among others.

Shortly thereafter, he wrestled just two matches for Cal Baptist before entering the transfer portal and moving back home to Wisconsin, where he took online classes to maintain his eligibility.

At that point, Mesenbrink’s stock was high, and the best NCAA programs who he hadn’t heard from before all reached out. He chose to continue his career at Penn State.

“He looked internally and said, ‘Hey, I’m not doing enough,’” Ferrell said. “And he worked a little harder, and he made that transition with both his movement and progression of moves on the mat and just his unwavering cardio.”

Uniquely dominant

Watch nearly all of Mesenbrink’s matches this year at Penn State, and you’ll see it. He’s on the attack as soon as the whistle blows. He’s not just a takedown machine, either, and routinely looks for turns and falls.

If he didn’t have so many of the latter, he might lead all NCAA wrestlers in takedowns. He had 45 this year, 31 in first periods alone, tied with teammate PJ Duke for the most in the opening three minutes of matches.

Not bad for a guy who can just as easily be found reading Socrates, Plato or one of his favorite modern philosophers, Ryan Holiday, up in the wrestling room’s bleachers on days off.

Or maybe he’s rocking out with an electric guitar or an acoustic to one of his own compositions. He plays both, and piano too.

“Everything he does he’s passionate about it,” Sanderson said. “That’s just his personality and just the zeal he has in life and just approaches everything with his best effort.”

His teammates will tap into him if they need encouragement or a different perspective. Mesenbrink has kicked off practices with philosophical readings designed to brighten his teammates’ days.

“It’s funny, my priest says ’to help someone make their day suck less,’” Mesenbrink said. “So however I can do that, I think has been a big thing that I’ve been thinking about and then also how can I be a tool in that.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2026 at 5:20 AM.