Penn State crowned four individual champions and had eight All-Americans out of the 10 weight classes. Winning individual titles for the Nittany Lions were Luke Lillendahl (125 pounds), Mitchell Mesenbrink (165), Levi Haines (174) and Josh Barr (197).

Oklahoma State was a distant second, pointing 131 while Nebraska was third with 100.5.

As a high school wrestler, Sanderson won four state titles at Wasatch. He then went 159-0 in his college career at Iowa State winning four NCAA titles and then won a gold medal in the 2008 Olympics. As a coach he’s second all-time in titles with 13 trailing only legendary Dan Gable who won 15 titles in two different stints as head coach at Iowa. Assisting Cael Sanderson is his older brother Cody, also a 4-time state champ at Wasatch High School and inaugural head coach at Utah Valley when they started its program in 2001.

Speaking of Utah Valley, the Wolverines finished tied for 34th out of 66 teams that qualified wrestlers. None of the five Utah Valley qualifiers survived the second day of competition as Haiden Drury (141), David Evans (149), Caleb Uhlenhopp (184), Kael Bennis (197) and Jack Forbes (285) represented the Wolverine program.

“I’m proud of our overall growth this season,” second-year UVU head coach Adam Hall said. “Although we did not accomplish our goal of getting onto the podium, I’m grateful for Haiden, David, and Jack for how much they put into our program. Caleb and Kael gained valuable experience this weekend and will be hungry this offseason. I’m also excited about our incoming freshmen and the rest of our team that has been putting in time this year. Our staff expects to have healthy competition this coming year and for the program to make another jump.”

Brock Hardy of Nebraska finished his collegiate career with a fourth place finish at 141 pounds. The former Box Elder 4-time state champ was also a 4-time NCAA All-American for the Cornhuskers.

Wyoming finished in 12th place with three All-Americans. Two Cowboy assistant coaches have ties to Utah County as former Payson wrestling state champion McCade Ford is the Associate Head Coach while former Spanish Fork state champion Branson Ashworth also is an assistant for the Cowboy program.

Besides Penn State’s dominance, the other main story was the freshmen that made a huge splash at the tournament knocking off returning champs along the way.

Three true freshmen from Oklahoma State won NCAA titles. One of them, Sergio Vega, actually beat Hardy 6-4 in the semifinals and then knocked off returning NCAA champion Jesse Mendez of Ohio State 4-1 in sudden victory overtime to claim the title.

At 133 pounds, four true freshmen finished in the top four places relegating the returning NCAA champion to seventh place while the returning runner-up finished sixth. Oklahoma’s Jax Forrest claimed the 133 pound title with a 5-2 win over fellow freshman Ben Davino of Ohio State. Forrest’s Cowboy freshman teammate Landon Robideau knocked off Nebraska returning champion Antrell Taylor 5-2 to win the 157-pound division.

Then Stanford freshman Aden Valencia from his No. 10 seed upset Penn State’s Shayne Van Ness at 149 pounds in sudden victory, 8-5. Van Ness was the top seed and entered the match with a 25-0 record before tasting defeat. Valencia became just Stanford’s third NCAA champion in program history but the second Stanford announced they were going to drop their wrestling program after the 2021 season only to rescind that decision after Shane Griffith won a NCAA title for the Cardinal.

Stanford rallies late to beat UVU baseball

STANFORD, Calif. – Utah Valley baseball suffered a 4-3 late-inning loss on Saturday against Stanford University.

UVU (10-10) held a lead into the ninth inning before the Cardinal (8-12) rallied late to win. Jacob Heppner tied a career high with seven innings pitched, which was a season high for the southpaw, while Derek Houston hit his first career home run and Hunter Katschke launched his team-leading eighth homer of the season.

The Wolverines, in the second inning, took advantage of two of Stanford’s three errors in the game, starting after Mason Strong’s single. He advanced on a throwing error by Quinten Marsh on a failed pickoff move and later stole third base and scored when the Stanford catcher’s throw went into left field to make it 1-0, UVU. Heppner settled in and did not allow a hit again until the fourth inning, when the Cardinal threatened to tie the game with a runner on second with one out, but a pop out and a flyout ended the fourth inning with the Wolverines up 1-0.

Utah Valley extended its lead in the seventh on Houston’s first career blast to start the seventh inning on a 375-foot shot to make it 2-0, UVU. The Cardinal came around to score a run in the home half of the seventh inning on a sacrifice fly by Ethan Hott to cut the Wolverines’ lead to 2-1.

In the eighth inning, the lead was extended back to 3-1 when Hunter Katschke took an 0-1 pitch over the center-field fence on a ball that traveled 408 feet. He has now homered in three of the last four games and in the last two consecutive contests for UVU.

Stanford’s Rintaro Sasaki homered to start the eighth inning to cut the lead down to 3-2, and Heppner ended the day with a season-high seven-inning performance. The southpaw also achieved the mark last season against Utah Tech when he tossed a complete game in St. George. Cooper Littledike  came in and got the next three outs to keep UVU in front 3-2 heading to the ninth inning. The Cardinal rallied with back-to-back doubles from Eric Jeon and Luke Lavin to tie the game before Sasaki singled home the game-winner for the walk-off win.

Power hitting sends UVU softball past Utah Tech

Tatum Hall, Emma Haygood and Amber Rodriguez each homered as Utah Valley (19-9, 2-1 WAC) rallied to a 7-6 walk-off win over the Utah Tech Trailblazers (11-20, 1-2 WAC) on Saturday to earn a doubleheader split and win the series, two games to one.

The Trailblazers used a four-run first to take an early lead in the first game of the day, holding off a late Wolverine rally to win, 8-6.

Hall led the Wolverine bats on the day, going a combined 5-for-8 with a home run, a double, three RBIs, and two runs scored. Hall worked a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the seventh to give the Wolverines the win in the game and the series.

“Really excited to win that series. Tatum couldn’t be better right now,” said head coach  Cody Thomson. “Lily [Riley] had another really good week, she just ran out of gas a little bit there at the end. I was really proud of Payge [Armendariz] coming in at the very end to close that out for us. The little things like that are going to make a big difference in the end for us.”