NCAA Wrestling Championships 2022: Results, Updated Team Standings After Saturday
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The time to crown national champions arrived Saturday at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
One year after settling for runner-up behind Iowa, Penn State reigned supreme for the ninth time under coach Cael Sanderson. Roman Bravo-Young, Nick Lee, Carter Starocci, Aaron Brooks and Max Dean all collected individual gold to catapult their squad to the top of the standings.
The Nittany Lions cruised past runner-up Michigan with 131.5 points. The Wolverines were a distant second with 95.0 points.
2022 NCAA Wrestling Championships Standings
1. Penn State, 131.5
2. Michigan, 95.0
3. Iowa, 74.0
4. Arizona State, 66.5
5. Nebraska, 59.5
6. Northwestern, 57.5
7. Cornell, 54.5
8. Virginia Tech, 52.5
9. Missouri, 49.5
10. NC State, 49.0
Full standings available at TrackWrestling.com
Here's how the individual tournaments finished:
Individual National Champions
Since hiring Sanderson in 2009, Penn State has been the preeminent wrestling program in the country. In no division have the Nittany Lions been better than the 184-pound class, with Brooks carrying on the tradition again this year.
Lee's victory meant the end of Kizhan Clarke's Cinderella run. Clarke shocked fans with an upset of Iowa's Jaydin Eierman, the No. 2 seed in his second match and knocked off sixth-seeded Cole Matthews of Pittsburgh en route to the final.
Clarke's magic ran out against Lee, the reigning national champion in the class.
The North Carolina grappler opened with a takedown, only for Lee to earn one point from an escape. Lee responded with a takedown of his own to claim an early 3-2 advantage and didn't look back from there.
The night wasn't all about Penn State.
Yianni Diakomihalis is a national champion for the third time capturing gold for the first time in the 149-pound class.
The Cornell star faced off with Nebraska's Ridge Lovett in the final. Heading into the third period, Diakomihalis held a sizable 9-3 lead. A takedown early in the period put him ahead 11-4. Lovett secured one point through an escape but had far too large a deficit to overcome in such a short period of time.
Gable Steveson closed out the championships in style as he coasted past Arizona State's Cohlton Schultz.
Steveson, who's already signed with WWE. He showed exactly why he has the chops to thrive in professional wrestling when he played to the crowd before delivering his trademark backflip.
More importantly, the 21-year-old symbolically confirmed this will be his last run in the NCAA championships when he left his shoes in the middle of the mat.
This time next year, Steveson might be preparing to compete in WrestleMania.
