It’s now All-American Zeth Romney for Cal Poly.
With a spot in the semifinals on the line at the NCAA Championships, the No. 4-seed Romney pulled through in front of the largest wrestling crowd in the country.
The redshirt sophomore defeated No. 21 Angelo Rini of Indiana by an 8-2 decision, clinching All-American honors and a semifinal spot.
In his second trip to the national tournament, Romney will now wrestle later tonight against the No. 1 seed Lucas Byrd of Illinois for a spot in the 133-pound title match.
Romney is 3-0 this year after going 0-2 in last year’s tournament.
As the No. 11-seed last year, Romney said he put too much weight on the tournament. The change is he’s just focused on having fun as he would for any other match.
“I’m ready to go all out there and just have fun,” Romney said. “I get to wrestle in front of the biggest crowd I’ve ever wrestled in front of, so it’s going to be super cool.”
The mindset Romney is carrying with him into the tournament comes courtesy of hours of mental work over the summer with Cal Poly’s Mindset and Performance Coach Coyte Cooper.
He began working with Romney after last year’s NCAA trip, helping him to compete without any pressure and enjoy the competition.
He started his trip with a 7-3 win over No. 29 Tyler Ferrara of Cornell at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia Thursday morning.
In the second round, he avenged an early season loss, beating No. 13 seed Tyler Knox of Stanford 4-2. Romney lost to Knox 5-3 on Nov. 16 at Cal Poly’s first home dual.
Romney’s second full season of competition as a Mustang has been incredible, going 16-4 and securing a 133-pound title at the Cliff Keen Invitational back in December.
After battling through injury throughout the year, Romney’s recovery helped him go into the tournament feeling the best he had all season. He dealt with both knee and hip injuries, causing him to miss some late season duals.
Romney will now take on the No. 1 seed Byrd, who went 20-1 this year. In the quarterfinals, he won 12-1 over No. 8-seed Braedan Davis of Penn State.
Byrd has experience, as this is his fourth time wrestling at the NCAA Championships and he just clinched his third All-American honors with the quarterfinal win.
Session 4 of the NCAA Championships will start at 5 p.m. PST on ESPN2 and ESPN+.