Great time today at Penn Stater, very blessed and humbled by the PSU wrestling program, WE ARE!
PSU Awards Luncheon
- Thread starter John Beach
- Start date
Over 600 in attendance, Messenbrink needs a new trophy case, Byers being inducted into PA wrestling hall of fame and Lee’s arm in a cast
Wasn’t it recently mentioned that Nick Lee might wrestle in the US Open. What happened to his arm?
Over 600 in attendance is fantastic. For perspective, in the 2024/2025 season almost half of D1 wrestling programs, including Michigan State and Northwestern, averaged less than 600 in attendance per dual. See the link below for the average attendance for D1 wrestling programs for the 2024/2025 season:
Iowa leads Division I men’s wrestling in home attendance for 18th straight season
The annual Division I men’s wrestling attendance report has been released by the National Wrestling Media Association.
www.nationalwrestlingmedia.com
Jeff Byers hosted as always and did a great job.
Mike Bevilacqua won the Outstanding Alumnus Award, and talked about the program under Cael, Rich Lorenzo and Bill Koll. Mike helped hand out the awards to the wrestlers.
Charles Spiedel Award for most take downs in the season with 102 was PJ Duke. I said it should have been 103
Bill Koll award for most pins was P J Duke with 10. Mitch had 8
Joe Scalzo Award for most points and the Award for the most Bonus points both went to Mitchell Mesenbrink.
The Academic Excellence Awards were given to 5 different wrestlers. I remember Dalton Perry, Asher Cunningham and Mass Ono. When M Ono came up to receive his award, he must have bowed and smiled 6 times. I can't wait to see him wrestle!
The Dan Hodge Award was presented by Bryan Van Kley to Mitchell Mesenbrink. Bryan was very complimentary of Mitch saying he was a better person off the mat than a wrestler on the mat, he pointed to Mitchell's faith as to what defines him. Bryan was super complimentary about PSU wrestling, about Cael and the staff and what they've built and accomplished as well as the PSU wrestlers themselves.
The 4 seniors, Levi Haines, Lucas Cochran, Aaron Nagao and Brian Borden went up front to speak on their time at PSU. They didn't speak long with Aaron Nagao saying he wouldn't change a thing, and was glad he came to PSU and praised his coaches and teammates. Levi told a story about his freshman year at B10's in Michigan. He said he was a half pound over weight and needed to workout in a freezing wrestling room to get the weight off. he was worried, but Coach Cody helped him get there!
Coach Cael was the last to speak. He talked about NIL. He said your name is who you are and defines you as a person. He said your image is what you project to others and how they see you. Your likeness is what kind of a teammate are you going to be and will you be there when we need you. Cael said on the 4th of July he had an incident at his home where he needed things moved in his basement in a hurry to keep them from being damage, Cael called Lucas Cochran, and he said Lucas was there in 10 minutes. He said all of the guys are so dependable and great teammates for each other. Cael also mentioned they want to keep Levi around for a long time, if they can just keep him out of the woods during wrestling season!
If anyone else can fill in the blanks or add anything more, please do!
Creamery freak, I was there and only remembered those things after I read your post and I had zero alcoholic beverages. Apparently that stenographer class you took paid off.
I thought it unique that our one wrestler with limited English skills won one of the academic awards. If I remember it correctly he won the award as being a sophomore. Cael should have made sure he won this year as the Freshman award winner and then gone back to the NCAA ans said look, I told you he has 3 more years of eligibility!
Lucas Cochran is one smart dude.
Back to Ono, I did enjoy the respect of his bows. I will love it if he starts next year and we can enjoy how many bows he does vs Mitchell shaking hands in appreciation after each of their matchs..
Cael didn't come out and say it but apparently Levi's recruiting skills as a student athlete/hunter/fisherman/one weekend per year recruiter still beat Bobby Telford in the recruiting area. ( you had to be there).
Also Creamery freak, vanilla ice cream with that one layer cake would have topped the luncheon.
I thought it unique that our one wrestler with limited English skills won one of the academic awards. If I remember it correctly he won the award as being a sophomore. Cael should have made sure he won this year as the Freshman award winner and then gone back to the NCAA ans said look, I told you he has 3 more years of eligibility!
Lucas Cochran is one smart dude.
Back to Ono, I did enjoy the respect of his bows. I will love it if he starts next year and we can enjoy how many bows he does vs Mitchell shaking hands in appreciation after each of their matchs..
Cael didn't come out and say it but apparently Levi's recruiting skills as a student athlete/hunter/fisherman/one weekend per year recruiter still beat Bobby Telford in the recruiting area. ( you had to be there).
Also Creamery freak, vanilla ice cream with that one layer cake would have topped the luncheon.
I was sorry I could not attend this year. I am always so impressed with the quality of these young men off the mat, as much as on the mat. We are indeed blessed with the best program in the country.
If I didn't post it last night, today would've been a different story.
I forgot about Cael saying Tyler Kasak's little brother has a joke to tell and so does Nate Desmond when he finished speaking. Tyler's brother said " Why doesn’t a Pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the P is silent!" Nate then spoke very highly of his teammates, coaches and the PSU wrestling program. It was a first class speech. Jeff Byers laughed, and said that Nate lost the joke contest!
Great event as always. Ono won the academic award for the wrestler in his 3rd year of eligibility so maybe that means he will get two years instead of one.
I think the joke is “Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?”
Correct. I thought it was pretty funny.
It is, but he blew it. Also, I believe it was a neighbor's basement was being flooded. A housesitter same to Cael for help. Cael called Lucas.
The crowd was great. The last time I attended was in the basement of the Nittany Lion Inn. Attendance has grown slightly since then.
I regret that I only had six of the available desserts.
One of my guests was my goddaughter who is a volunteer at PAWS, an animal shelter in State College. They take pictures of everyone who adopts an animal. She showed me a picture of someone who was approved to adopt a cat on Saturday - P.J. Duke.
