LARAMIE — The University of Wyoming wrestling team will open its 2025-26 home schedule Saturday night by hosting top-ranked and four-time defending national champion Penn State at 6 p.m. inside the Arena-Auditorium. The dual will be broadcast on Flo.
“Penn State has been awesome to work with throughout this whole process,” Wyoming head coach Mark Branch said. “It means a lot for our program. It means a lot to our fans. It means a lot for the sport of wrestling. We are fired up about it.”
It will be just the second time in the program’s 95-year history that Wyoming has hosted the No. 1 team in the nation. The only other instance came during the 1987-88 season, when top-ranked Iowa State traveled to Laramie.
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Penn State brings one of the nation’s most accomplished lineups to town, featuring multiple No. 1-ranked wrestlers and a reigning national champion. Mitchell Mesenbrink won the national title at 165 pounds last season, while Luke Lilledahl at 125, Shayne Van Ness at 149 and Levi Haines at 174 all finished in the top three at the NCAA Championships a year ago.
Wyoming counters with seven ranked wrestlers. Joey Novak is ranked No. 4 at 197 pounds, followed by No. 8 Christian Carroll at heavyweight, No. 12 Eddie Neitenbach at 184, No. 16 Luke Willochell at 133, No. 19 Jared Hill at 157, No. 27 Gabe Willochell at 149 and No. 28 Riley Davis at 174.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity at our fingertips to possibly pull off individual upsets, which would catapult us,” Branch said. “But in the bigger scheme of National Duals and Vegas, we want to see the best competition that we can see, especially this first semester to help us gauge what kind of gap there is, what kind of progress we need to make and what kind of things we need to clean up.”
The Cowboys are coming off a seventh-place team finish at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational, where four wrestlers earned podium finishes. Novak and Carroll each placed second, while Neitenbach finished fourth and Luke Willochell placed sixth.
Saturday’s dual marks the second meeting between the two programs. Penn State won the first matchup, 54-0, last season in University Park, Pennsylvania.
Wyoming was short-handed in that meeting, missing three starters, and Branch said the Cowboys hope a healthier lineup will lead to a different showing this time.
“We’ll be able to field our best team right now, and I think we have a chance to win some matches,” Branch said. “I just want to see that fight from everybody – all ten guys. But if we go out there and wrestle our best, we can pull off some wins and outperform what we did last year.”
Following the dual, Wyoming will close out the 2025 portion of its schedule at the Reno Tournament of Champions on Dec. 21 at the Reno Events Center.
