Oak Glen graduate Peyton Hall placed third on Saturday at the NCAA Div. I Wrestling Championships. (Photo by Michael Burich)

PHILADELPHIA — The winningest West Virginia University wrestler of all-time left it all out on the mat on Saturday at the NCAA Div. I Wrestling Championships at Wells Fargo Arena.

Mountaineer fifth-year senior and Oak Glen High School graduate Peyton Hall captured third-place at 165 pounds to cap his highly decorated career.

“This season has honestly been what I have been trying to put together my whole career,” Hall said. “I feel like I’ve been at this level for a long time and the consistency wasn’t there. This year I finally put it together and wrestled a full seven minutes. I just decided to do the hard thing in the matches.”

Hall (35-2) went 5-1 at the tournament to finish his career with a 135-30 record. In a school best five NCAA tournament appearances, Hall tied the school record of 17 victories and was an All-American three times as he also finished seventh in 2024 and eighth in 2022.

Along the way he was the sixth Mountaineer wrestler from the state of West Virginia to be named All-American and he was the first Mountaineer to place in the 165-pound class at nationals. Hall joined three-time national champion Greg Jones and Vertus Jones as three-time WVU All-Americans.

The third-place match pitted the No. 2 seeded Hall against No. 12 seeded Christopher Minto of Nebraska and Hall used an explosive second period to make sure Minto’s Cinderella run ended right there.

Hall led 5-4 after the first period and then packed on the points with two takedowns and an escape in the second to lead 12-5 heading into the last period. Hall tacked on a riding time point to win 13-5.

In the consolation semifinal, Hall bested Utah Valley’s Terrell Barraclough 7-5 with a takedown with six seconds left in the match. Hall was trailing 7-5 at the time of his match-winning takedown. It also marked a manner of revenge for Hall as Barraclough served up the Big 12 champions’s only loss of the regular season.

Unbeaten Mitchell Mesenbrink of Penn State defeated Iowa’s Michael Caliendo 8-2 in the 165-pound championship on Saturday night.

Notes

¯ Hall’s 35 wins in the season are tied for seventh all-time at WVU with Sam Kline (1998) and Mike Mason (1997).

¯ West Virginia’s wrestling program dates back to 1921.

¯ Hall is the first WVU wrestler to finish third at nationals since Vertus Jones and Mike Mason in 1999.

¯ As a team, West Virginia finished tied for 18th place with 21 total points. This is the first time West Virginia has finished in the top 20 at back-to-back championships since 2004-05. West Virginia finished 17th last season.

¯ During the evening session Hall managed to meet and pose for a photo with President Donald Trump.