Tag: Greg Kerkvliet

Penn State wrestling clinches 11th NCAA national title under Cael Sanderson

Death, taxes, and Penn State winning a national championship in college wrestling.

Add another national title to the books for Penn State’s wrestling program. The Nittany Lions clinched the NCAA team national championship with a strong showing in the semifinals on Friday, going a perfect 6-0 in semifinal matches at the NCAA national championships.

Penn State sits in first place with 148.0 points after Friday’s semifinal matches. Michigan is in second place with a point total of 65.5, and Iowa is in third with 65.0 points. This marks Penn State’s third consecutive team national title under head coach Cael Sanderson, and its 11th in the past 13 seasons. This is Penn State’s 12th all-time national championship for the wrestling team.

[autotag]Beau Bartlett[/autotag] (141 lb), [autotag]Levi Haines[/autotag] (157 lb), [autotag]Mitchell Mesenbrink[/autotag] (165 lb), [autotag]Carter Starocci[/autotag] (174 lb), [autotag]Aaron Brooks[/autotag] (197 lb), and [autotag]Greg Kerkvliet[/autotag] (285 lb) all will compete for individual national titles on Saturday.

Penn State has also had eight wrestlers named all-americans, bringing the school’s all-time total to 254.

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NCAA wrestling championship photos: Penn State nearing another national title

Penn State’s wrestling team is inching closer to yet another national championship.

The month of March has much more than basketball madness popping up around Happy Valley. At Penn State, March is when the school’s wrestling program performs at its best, and it is once again closing in on another national championship at this year’s NCAA wrestling championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Penn State’s top wrestlers went 5-2 in the semifinals to inch closer to another team title under head coach Cael Sanderson. Following Friday’s round, Penn State owned 116.5 points in the standings, with Iowa in second with 77.0 points in the overall team standings. Five Penn State wrestlers will have a chance to secure an individual national title on Saturday; [autotag]Roman Bravo-Young[/autotag], [autotag]Levi Haines[/autotag], [autotag]Carter Starocci[/autotag], [autotag]Aaron Brooks[/autotag], and [autotag]Greg Kerkvliet[/autotag]. [autotag]Beau Bartlett[/autotag] and [autotag]Shayne Van Ness[/autotag] will battle for third-place in consolation matches on Saturday.

Here are some of the best photos of Penn State hitting the mats at the NCAA wrestling national championships in Tulsa.

Best photos from Penn State wrestling’s Big Ten championship

Best photos of Roman Bravo-Young and the Penn State wrestling program’s Big Ten championship.

Death, taxes, and Penn State wrestling. Once again the most dominant athletics program at Penn State celebrated a Big Ten championship at this year’s Big Ten wrestling championships, thus setting the tone for another potential national championship run for the program.

[autotag]Roman Bravo-Young[/autotag] (133), [autotag]Aaron Brooks[/autotag] (184),  [autotag]Carter Starocci[/autotag] (174), and [autotag]Levi Haines[/autotag] (157) all won individual Big Ten titles in their respective weight classes to help Penn State build its lead for the team championship. [autotag]Max Dean[/autotag] (197) and [autotag]Greg Kerkvliet[/autotag] (285) were finalists in their weight class as well but fell shy of a Big Ten championship.

Here are some of the best photos from Penn State’s wrestling stars at the Big Ten championships.

Two Penn State athletes sign NIL deal with WWE

Will either of these Penn State athletes be the next big WWE superstar?

Two Penn State athletes, wrestler [autotag]Greg Kerkvliet[/autotag] and football player [autotag]Nick Dawkins[/autotag] signed a NIL Deal with WWE, announced Thursday by the world’s largest professional wrestling promotion.

Kerkvliet and Dawkins will be part of the company’s Next in Line initiative. The point of the program is for the WWE to find its future talent while they are still competing and allows them to monitor their growth as athletes. Upon graduation, both men will have a chance to go to Florida to train at the WWE’s Performance Center located in Orlando, Florida.

Kerkvliet and Dawkins’s involvement with Next in Line won’t impact their college eligibility due to it falling under the NIL regulations set by the NCAA.

Dawkins is the son of NBA legend Daryl “Chocolate Thunder” Dawkins, who has a history in the WWE as well. He has been part of Penn State’s football program since the 2020 season and while he hasn’t played in any games yet he has stayed on the team in a reserve role.

As for Kerkvliet, he could be the latest in a long line of Big Ten wrestlers to make their jump to WWE, several having great success in the past.

The second-ranked heavyweight wrestler in the country hopes to join the likes of Brock Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin, both wrestled for Minnesota. Lesnar will go down as one of the legends of professional wrestling and Benjamin has turned it into a 20-year career.

Other wrestlers include both Rick and Scott Steiner who hailed from Michigan.

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