Big Ten Wrestling: Ranking the top three wrestlers at each weight class

157

1. Brayton Lee (Minnesota)
2. Peyton Robb (Nebraska)
3. Will Lewan (Michigan)

And just like the Big Ten trio at 149, the group at 157 is also incredibly overloaded at the top.

Minnesota’s Brayton Lee leads the field early as he has proven he’s not just one of the top wrestlers in the Big Ten, but he’s one of the best in the entire nation.

Following an eye opening 25-6 record his redshirt freshman year, Lee finished sixth in the 2021 NCAA’s and slapped together a 17-1 record going into Minnesota’s regular season dual meet against Ohio State this past year. Unfortunately, Brayton suffered a freak wrist injury in the dual meet and had to miss the remainder of the 2021-2022 season.

But Lee is going to be back, and the Golden Gophers are hoping he will be better than ever.

Yet another Cornhusker finds their way into these preseason rankings as Peyton Robb spun a ho-hum 13-8 regular season into a surprise run into the third-place match against the defending NCAA Champion from the prior year, Iowa State’s David Carr. Carr ultimately took home the podium finish, but Robb’s fourth place finish will undoubtedly give him confidence going into this year.

Rounding out the top three at 157 is Michigan’s Will Lewan. Lewan is a competitive guy who can best be summed up by a single word: “grinder”. He’s not the flashiest wrestler on the mat, nor will he win many matches with bonus points, but he will give his opponent a full seven minutes each time and grind out every second.

Three of the six 2022 NCAA matches Lewan wrestled in went to sudden victory and none of his four wins were by more than two points. But the dust settled at 157 with Will finishing in fifth place, thus marking the first time he’s achieve All-American honors. Lewan will certainly be looking to build on this success going into the 2022-2023 season.

But before we head over to the 165 group, there are two other wrestlers to keep an eye out for next year. And these are Penn State’s Levi Haines and Ohio State’s Paddy Gallagher.

Both youngsters are freshman, and both are supremely talented. Haines was ranked ninth overall in the nation in the 2022 class and Gallagher was ranked third overall in the 2021 class.

It appears Gallagher will assuredly crack the Buckeye’s starting lineup, but the jury is still out for whether Haines will redshirt or not. Either way, both of these grapplers could make some noise this coming year and I for one will never second guess Cael Sanderson when it comes to wrestling and/or coaching.