Penn State wrestling trio set to compete in U23 Pan-Am Championships this weekend
The International freestyle season for Penn State wrestling starts this weekend. Three Nittany Lions will compete at the 2025 U23 Pan-American Championships. Luke Lilledahl, Levi Haines, and Connor Mirasola all aim to earn Team USA a spot in their weight class at the 2025 Junior Pan American Games. Those will be held in Asunción, Paraguay in August. A top-eight finish is required to do so. The trio will be on the mat when the men’s freestyle division is contested on Saturday. The action begins at Noon ET and finishes with the medal round at 7 p.m. ET.
Lilledahl will lead things off for Team USA. He competes at 57 kilograms (125.6 pounds). An All-American in his first year as the 125-pound starter for Penn State, he’ll open his tournament in Mexico opposite Ricardo Pena Valencia of Mexico. He finished fifth at the U17 Pan-Am games last year. The Nittany Lion will need to win two matches to qualify his weight class. He quickly turned his focus to the freestyle scene following a third-place finish at nationals back in March at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
“Now that folkstyle season is over, I’m focused on winning another world title in freestyle,” Lilledahl said. ‘That’s what I’m focused on now.”
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After Pan-Ams, he’ll compete at the U.S. Open later this month. There, he will compete at the junior and senior levels. The ultimate goal would be to wrestle Spencer Lee at Final X this summer for a chance at making the U.S Senior World Team.
“I just like to compete, right? So I want to compete in everything, and I want to compete at the highest level,” Lilledahl said. “So if I win the Senior Open and I wrestle in Final X, that’d be great. That’d be really amazing. But, yeah, just not really focused on all that stuff just yet. Going to recover this week. You. And then we’ll get to that.”
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Moving on to Haines, the senior-to-be will compete in the 79-kilogram (174.1 pounds) division. He is fresh off a third place finish at nationals in the 174-pound weight class.
“In his bracket are Jackson Deen Glasgow of Canada, Josue Camargo Molina of Colombia, Josue Alvarez Sintuj of Guatemala, and Alan Vera Gomez of Mexico,” Savannah Asmann writes for USA Wrestling in previewing Haines’ tournament. “Alvarez Sintuj is a 2024 Pat Shaw Memorial bronze medalist, while Vera Gomez is a 2023 U17 Pan American Championships silver medalist.”
Last but not least, Mirasola, who is coming off a redshirt season at Penn State, will compete against an even smaller field. He is one of three entrants at 92 kilograms (202 pounds).
