Senior Jesse Mendez has been named the top seed at 141 pounds for the upcoming 2026 Big Ten Wrestling Championships, according to pre-seeds released by the conference. The event will be hosted by Penn State at the Bryce Jordan Center in State College, Pennsylvania.
Mendez enters the tournament after winning both the 2024 Big Ten and NCAA championships and repeating as NCAA champion in 2025.
Ohio State’s lineup features several other high seeds. Sophomore Ethan Stiles is seeded second at 149 pounds. Junior Nic Bouzakis holds the third seed at 125 pounds, while freshman Ben Davino (133) and junior Nick Feldman (heavyweight) are also No. 3 seeds in their respective classes. Graduate Carson Kharchla (174) and sophomore Luke Geog (197) are both seeded fifth.
The Buckeyes have seven wrestlers ranked among the top five seeds for this year’s championship.
The tournament begins Saturday at 10 a.m. Eastern Time with first-round matches, quarterfinals, and wrestlebacks airing on Big Ten Network. Additional sessions will be broadcast or streamed via B1G+ and FOX Sports app throughout Saturday and Sunday, concluding with finals scheduled for Sunday at 4:30 p.m.
“Big Ten Network and B1G+ will provide live linear and streaming coverage of all four sessions, with Big Ten Network linear coverage also available on the FOX Sports App, while Big Ten Network+ matches can be streamed at bigtenplus.com,” according to event organizers.
A full list of pre-seeded wrestlers across all weight classes was published ahead of the competition.