Penn State will be well represented at the Final X. What to know about the wrestlers
Penn State will be well represented at this year’s Final X.
Two current Nittany Lions, two former Nittany Lions and two additional Nittany Lion Wrestling Club members are all competing at the event Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Luke Lilledahl and Marcus Blaze will represent the current team, while alums Zain Retherford and Levi Haines will also compete, along with NLWC representatives Kyle Dake and Kyle Snyder. All six will face off in best-of-three series with the winner of each series going on to represent the United States at the 2026 World Championships.
The first round of the matchups are set to begin at 2 p.m., with the second (and potential third) rounds beginning at 5 p.m. and airing on FloWrestling.
Here’s everything you need to know about the six Nittany Lions competing at the event.
57 kg — Luke Lilledahl vs. Spencer Lee
Lilledahl will meet a former Iowa Hawkeye in Lee in a rematch of this year’s U.S. Open finals, which Lilledahl won 5-4. This year’s best of three finals will be a rematch of last year’s, which Lee swept, 7-2 and 6-0. Those are two of Lilledahl’s only three losses since April 2024 in freestyle.
61 kg — Marcus Blaze vs. Jax Forrest
Blaze and Forrest haven’t faced off in freestyle since the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at the Bryce Jordan Center back in 2024, when Blaze won 8-1 to finish third at the event. The Nittany Lion would’ve faced Forrest at the U.S. Open this year, but the latter was defeated by Ben Davino — who Blaze beat to win gold.
70 kg — Zain Retherford vs. Ridge Lovett
Retherford, who wrestled for Penn State from 2013-2018, nearly called it a wrestling career ahead of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in 2024, and has only wrestled three senior matches since the 2024 Summer Olympics, winning all three — all of which happened in May. Lovett has won his last 10 matches, all of which came this year, including gold at the U.S. Open and the Pan American Wrestling Championships.
79 kg — Levi Haines vs. Chance Marsteller
Haines ended his Penn State career in March with a second NCAA title and has gone 4-0 in freestyle since, winning the 2026 Pan American Wrestling Championships. He hasn’t faced Marsteller, who has over 150 career freestyle matches and won gold over Evan Wick at the U.S. Open to earn his spot. Haines took on Wick at last year’s Final X, winning both matches before taking silver at Worlds.
86 kg — Kyle Dake vs. Zahid Valencia
Dake is one of the most decorated collegiate wrestlers in NCAA history as a four-time national champion and has won two bronze medals in freestyle since then — with the second coming in 2024 after he joined the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club in 2022. He won gold at the U.S. Open and will have a chance to avenge last year’s Final X matchup with Valencia, when the latter won both matches — 5-3 and 4-1.
97 kg — Kyle Snyder vs. Stephen Buchanan
Snyder joined the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club in 2019 and has had plenty of success since, including an Olympic silver medal at the 2020 Olympics. He won last year’s Final X at 97 kg over Hayden Zillmer, 8-0 and 8-2 and went on to win gold at Worlds later that year. He and his 200+ freestyle matches will take on the relatively inexperienced Buchanan, who won the U.S. Open and is 15-3 in freestyle.
