The college wrestling season kicks off in one week, but a few college stars had the opportunity to test themselves against the best in the world already at the 2024 U23 World Championships in Albania. Here’s what we learned about some of the nation’s best college wrestlers at this event and what their performances could tell us about their potential NCAA success this year.
All-Americans Mitchell Mesenbrink and Jacob Cardenas show grit, earn medals
Penn State’s Mitchell Mesenbrink and Michigan’s Jacob Cardenas will now bring even more world-level accolades to the college scene this year, as the two stars left Albania with a bronze and a silver medal at 74kg and 92kg respectively.
Both of these athletes have won medals at age group world championships before, with Mesenbrink winning a U20 silver in 2022 and a U20 gold in 2023 and Cardenas winning a U23 silver and bronze in 2022 and 2023, respectively. This most recent 2024 performance though only sharpens these athletes again and gives them a new perspective on their game heading into another folkstyle season.
Both Mesenbrink and Cardenas are in the conversation to be title threats this year at 165 and 197 pounds respectively, though Mesenbrink in particular is expected to roll through his weight and compete for a Hodge Trophy.
The fact that he was tested at Worlds will only help him in that quest.
In his first round match in Albania, Mesenbrink topped Murat Dzhakupov of Kazakhstan, 7-2, in the opening round before dropping to Kota Takahashi of Japan 11-8 in the quarterfinals.
Mitchell Mesenbrink pace will always be like a “🐀 on a Cheeto”
— USA Wrestling (@USAWrestling)
Only one athlete put up 11 points against Mesenbrink last season in folkstyle — Dean Hamiti — and that athlete is moving up. Mesenbrink's international experiences and the way he's going to be able to use that lone loss in Albania to help him identify gaps in his game will only make it more unlikely that another athlete in the NCAA will generate that kind of offense against the Nittany Lion.
Mesenbrink is dangerous in all positions, and while freestyle achievements don’t always correlate to folkstyle dominance, he has shown that he can translate those skills. His offense, which he demonstrated in the repechage of the World Championships to fight his way back to bronze with 16-7 and 6-0 wins, will continue to serve him well this year.
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Cardenas, meanwhile, didn’t take a loss at U23s until the finals when he ran into Amir Firouzpour of Iran and dropped the bout 11-4. Prior to that, he teched Mustafagadzhi Malachdibirov of Russiatopped Filip Szucki of Serbia 5-1, pinned Andro Margishvili of Georgia and outscored Musza Arsunkaev of Hungary 5-2 before the finals. These wins can offer Cardenas some confidence heading into a fun, stacked 197-pound weight class this year.
Cardenas comes into the folkstyle season ranked third behind 2021 NCAA champion AJ Ferrari and Iowa senior All-American Stephen Buchanan. He lost to Buchanan 9-4 in last year’s consolation finals, but he does have wins over All-Americans Rocky Elam, Stephen Little and Louie DePrez from last season.
Corner Cam. advances back into the 92kg U23 world finals. 👏
— Michigan Wrestling (@umichwrestling)
In addition to the U23 experience and the confidence that can come from being second in the world, Cardnesas could also see improvement this season from his new training partners in the Michigan wrestling room.
Before moving to Ann Arbor, Cardenas spent four years at Cornell already in his college wrestling career, finishing on the podium twice. But the Ivy League does not allow graduate students to compete, meaning that if Cardenas wanted to take his bonus COVID season he needed to do it somewhere else. He chose Michigan.
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The Wolverines have a track record of developing top-tier athletes at domestic and international level, including three upperweight 2024 Olympians and former NCAA All-Americans Adam Coon, Mason Parris and Myles Amine. Cardenas is in the right place to make the next jump forward, and he’s in a weight class where that jump forward could mean competing on Saturday night in March at the NCAA tournament for a national title at 197 pounds.
Women's wrestling depth highlighted by five medals across three colleges
Much like in the Olympics, the U.S. women outperformed the U.S. men, bringing home five medals this time in comparison to the two earned in men's freestyle. The takeaway from the women's tournament isn't just the medal count though. It's also the success of some of the leading women's college wrestling programs in developing athletes who can compete on the international stage.
Three members of the US women's U23 world team came from the Iowa Hawkeyes, with sophomore Kylie Welker winning gold at 72kg, grad student Macey Kilty winning silver at 62kg, and junior Skye Realin competing at 59kg.
Global Hawkeyes 🇺🇸🐥
— Iowa Women's Wrestling (@IowaW_Wrestling)
Skye Realin (U23), Macey Kilty (U23/Sr.) and Kylie Welker (U23/Sr.) are set to compete at the 2024 World Championships in Albania. x
Welker, who has been a leading name at her weight since high school, won a bronze medal at U23s in 2021 and will also be Team USA's senior world team rep. Her teammate, Macey Kilty will join her on that senior world team.
Collegiately, Welker and Kilty have vastly different backgrounds, but both will benefit this season from the opportunity to compete internationally and the confidence that comes with securing such big wins at this level.
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Welker came to Iowa straight out of high school as the No. 1 pound-for-pound recruit in her class. She, along with her entire team, redshirted the 2022-23 season before racking up big national wins the following season. She became an NCWWC champion at 170 pounds, and her win in the finals over Yelena Makoyed of North Central (Ill.) secured the team title for Iowa. Welker was rewarded with 2024 Open Mat NCAA Women’s Wrestler of the Year honors for her performance. The world championship title is another notch on her belt for one of the most successful wrestlers in the Iowa women's program's short history.
Kilty adds even more firepower to this program. A grad student competing in her first year for the Hawkeyes, Kilty started the season well with this silver medal in Albania, and she will look to repeat and possibly improve on that performance at the senior world championships next week. She brings experience and poise to the Iowa room and gives the Hawks more depth at the middleweights where they had a national champion last year in Reese Larramendy at 143 pounds and Marlynne Deede at 155 pounds.
This morning spent some time working out with the Marines 💪
— Big Ten Wrestling (@B1GWrestling)
Iowa isn't the only program with two representative who brought home hardware from worlds though. North Central, the team that Iowa only narrowly beat at last year's national championship, also had two stars step up in Albania at 50kg with Amani Jones winning bronze at 55kg and assistant coach Yelena Makoyed winning gold at 76kg.
Makoyed, an alum of North Central, showed her athletes what's possible for grads of the program as she dominated her bracket, pinning three of her opponents and teching one. Her win makes her the first athlete in North Central program history to win a world gold and raises the level and the expectation for future Cardinals.
Her athlete, Jones, though, also added to trophy case with bronze, her second world bronze of her career. These performances give a boost to North Central and Iowa heading into the year as they compete again for the top spot.
Not be be left out of the discussion though is Sage Mortimer from Grand Valley State who brought gold back for her program as well. Mortimer transferred from King University in 2023 and will begin her junior season with the Lakers on Nov. 2 at the Pointer Open after redshirting last season. She previously won the 2022 U20 Pan American championships, but this U23 gold brings a new spotlight to her program and again highlights the depth and increasing success of women wrestlers across teams.Collegiate success was just the beginning, won 7 Olympic wrestling medals! 🏅💪 x
— NCAA (@NCAA)
Greco world championship experience gives Hunter Garvin, Wyatt Voelker important experience
Greco wrestling has been a tough style for the U.S. in recent years, and while the team did bring home a medal courtesy of Beka Melelashvili's silver at 82kg, no current student-athletes finished on the podium at this weight.
The experience of competing at the world stage more generally though can only be a positive for Stanford All-American Hunter Garvin who represented the U.S. in Greco at 77kg and Wyatt Voelker of Northern Iowa who competed at 97kg.
Garvin did win a match too, beating Karan Karan of India in the first round before dropping to Doniyorkhon Nakibov of Uzbekistan 7-1. Garvin will be in the mix to compete for a spot in the national finals this year at 165 pounds after taking sixth last season. He'll be part of the first dual of the season to air on the Big Ten Network too when the Cardinal take on the Iowa Hawkeyes Nov. 7 in Iowa City. His match will likely pit him against All-American Mikey Caliendo for a battle between the No. 2 and No. 3 athletes at the weight. Fellow U23 world team member Mitchell Mesenbrink is currently ranked No. 1.
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Unlike Garvin, UNI's Voelker did not notch a win in Albania, but being able to represent the Panthers and Team USA is never a bad thing. Voelker battled tough against Christos Chatsatourov of Greece, falling 6-4, and a match like that will benefit him heading into the NCAA season, purely from an experience. Voelker finished in the Round of 16 last year and will start this season ranked appropriately at No. 16 at 197 pounds. He'll have an early test on Nov. 24 against No. 8 Zach Glazier of South Dakota State — look for Voelker to make some noise and surprise some people this year.
Between his back-to-back world championship appearances (he finished fifth at U20s last year) and the fact that he's training in the same room as 2024 184-pound NCAA champion Parker Keckeisen, Voelker is poised for a breakout season.
