Jantzen Wins NCAA Title

ST. LOUIS, MO.—The Harvard wrestling team's Jesse Jantzen has said that he has been looking forward to winning a national championship since he first came to Harvard.

But he got a whole lot more than that award with his 9-3 victory over Oklahoma State's Zack Esposito—he also won the tournament's Most Outstanding Wrestler award, the first in Crimson history.

“I really wasn't expecting this,” No. 1 Jantzen (149 lbs.) said. “It came as a total surprise.”

The tournament caps an incredible career for a man frustrated by two third-place NCAA finishes the past two years, who has now had, “the first Harvard wrestler to...” written about him more times than he can count. These “firsts” include winning the EIWA championship three times, becoming a four time NCAA qualifier and earning All-American honors three times—also an Ivy League first.

Jantzen, who finishes the season 38-1 and his career 130-13, is also just the second wrestler in Harvard history to win a national championship. John Harkness ’38, the first to win the title, did so in the 175 lbs. weight class.

“It's terrific,” said Harkness, who was attending the tournament. “Jesse is really an outstanding wrestler. He's way out of his league.”

Jantzen came out aggressively and dominated the entire match, scoring five points in the first 90 seconds with a takedown and three near fall points. The only points No. 2 Esposito—whose team won the national championship for the second straight year—notched came in the third period.

“It’s kind of funny, I asked [Jantzen] what the game plan was, and he [said], ‘I’m going right at him,’” said Harvard coach Jay Weiss.

After racking up over two minutes of riding time in the first period, Jantzen chose to start the second on bottom, and scored a one-point escape in the first five seconds. This would be the only scoring of the period, as the wrestlers headed into the third with Jantzen on top, 6-0.

He pushed that lead to a nearly insurmountable eight-point gap after scoring another takedown with 1:10 remaining in the match. Still, Jantzen felt that there was never a moment where he had secured the victory.

“Esposito's really dangerous,” Jantzen said. “You are never really comfortable, because he can score or put you on your back at any time.”

Esposito, a sophomore who finishes the year 32-2, did manage to score some points in the final period, but it was too little too late. The first one came as a result of an illegal hold by Jantzen with 56 seconds remaining in the match, and the second came with 22 seconds left after Jantzen was called for stalling. Both wrestlers had been warned about it in the first period.

“That was a terrible call,” Weiss said about the holding. “Any time a guy goes on bottom and he goes to his stomach he's obviously stalling.”

Esposito's third and final point came in the closing seconds when he earned an escape. But Jantzen augmented the margin, adding a ninth point for riding time.

Winning the Most Outstanding Wrestler award was by no means a foregone conclusion for Jantzen. The other wrestlers in consideration for the honor were Nebraska's No. 1 Jason Powell (125 lbs.), who scored a technical fall over Illinois' No. 6 Kyle Ott, and No. 1 Oklahoma State's Chris Pendleton (174 lbs.) who defeated Missouri’s No. 6 Ben Askren 11-4 and had a pin and a technical fall earlier in the tourney.

Still, Jantzen had a very impressive NCAA performance. He had two major decisions, including a technical fall in the first round, and his closest match was decided by three points. This was against Brown's David Dies, who Jantzen beat by just one point the first time he saw him this year.

The Jantzen-Esposito match was one of just two where the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds met in the final round. The only other occurrence was in the 165 lb. category, where Lehigh's Troy Letters beat upset the Cowboys' Tyrone Lewis, 5-2.

—Staff writer Evan R. Johnson can be reached at erjohns@fas.harvard.edu.