NCAA Wrestling Tournament 2023: Mason Parris finally climbs mountain, wins national title

Michigan heavyweight Mason Parris finally broke through and won an NCAA Wrestling title in his final year. The Wolverine outlasted Penn State’s Greg Kervkliet 5-1.

The Wolverine was a previous runner up but came into this tournament undefeated and the No. 1 seed. He made it count and won it all for the Maize and Blue.

In the immediate aftermath, Parris was in a bit of daze.

“It’s a mix of a lot of emotions right now,” Parris said. “I’m still trying to process it all. My adrenaline is still really high. There’s just so much going through my mind right now.

“And grateful is the main thing that comes to my mind. And just blessed that I have the coaches and the partners and the school — everything, the support system that’s behind me. And I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Parris’ future is up in the air as far as the WWE feeder program or the Olympics. But it seems like the latter is his focus.

“It’s going to be really cool,” Parris said. “I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do yet with everything. I have a lot of plans in the future. And my plan right now is 2024 Olympics. Parris in Paris, that’s the goal. And maybe you’ll see me in the maize and blue pads still.”

Here’s how it all went down against Kerkvliet:

As the match opened, Kerkvliet looked like he would get the opening takedown but Parris defended well. He then countered with his own shot to take a 2-0 lead and nearly got Kerkvliet to his back. However, the Nittany Lion recovered.

As Parris rode him in the first, Kerkvliet was hit with stalling. Parris opened the second period with an escape and took a 3-0 lead. 

The two remained in neutral for the remainder of the frame and Parris went to the third with a lead. Kerkvliet chose down for the final two minutes. About halfway through the third, Kerkvliet called for injury time after tweaking his knee.

Parris had choice after injury time and chose down with 1:20 remaining. Parris was hit with his second stall call but Parris escaped and it was 4-1 in favor of the Wolverine.

He clinched it and won 5-1 for Michigan.

Parris wins, More on the 2023 NCAA Wrestling Championships

The 2023 NCAA Wrestling Championships were held March 16-18 at the BOK Center in Tulsa (Okla). The tournament consists of 330 wrestlers in total across 10 weight classes. Each weight class features wrestlers seeded No. 1 through No. 33.

Over the course of the three-day tournament, wrestlers can achieve national champion status by going 5-0 in their bracket, through Saturday night’s finals. The top eight placewinners in each bracket are considered All-Americans.

Losing one match does not eliminate a wrestler from competition. The consolation bracket is designed to determine the remaining spots on the podium (third through eighth place).

Since there are 33 wrestlers in each weight, the competitors seeded No. 32 and 33 compete in a “pigtail bout” prior to the first round to determine who matches up against the No. 1 seed in Round 1.

Losing the pigtail drops the wrestler to the consolation bracket where there is still an opportunity to finish as high as third place in the weight class.

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The 2024 NCAA Wrestling Tournament is set to take place in Kansas City (Mo.).