For seven minutes, Jesse Mendez stayed on the attack.
An underdog against Beau Bartlett, Mendez came in and shot for takedown after takedown, working position after position trying to find an edge over the nation's No. 1 wrestler in his 141-pound weight class.
With the match tied at 1-1 off escape points and the clock dwindling under 20 seconds in the third period, Mendez found his moment.
He grappled with Bartlett through multiple spots on the mat until he grabbed a double-leg on last year's third-place finisher at the NCAA Championships, planted him on the canvas and swung around to secure a takedown with six seconds left to wrestle.
The Buckeye sophomore became a Big Ten champion, beating Bartlett 4-1.
JESSE MENDEZ IS A BIG TEN CHAMPION pic.twitter.com/l1FfY3EvUp
— Ohio State Wrestling (@wrestlingbucks) March 10, 2024
It's the first conference championship for Mendez, who finished sixth as a freshman at the Big Ten championships after going 1-3.
Mendez is currently No. 3 in the country at 141 pounds and should be a contender for a national championship in the weight class at the NCAA Tournament. In reaching the championship match against Bartlett, Mendez also knocked off the No. 2 wrestler in the weight class nationally, Iowa's Real Woods.
Ohio State's heavyweight representative, a fellow second-year wrestler in No. 7 Nick Feldman, made it all the way to the title match in his weight class before falling to No. 1 Greg Kerkvliet of Penn State to finish in second place.
No. 11 Rocco Welsh had a fantastic run at 174 pounds, entering as the fifth seed in his weight class. He fell in the quarterfinals to fourth-seeded No. 8 Edmund Ruth but upset third-seeded No. 7 Patrick Kennedy to reach the third-place match, where he beat No. 12 Jackson Turley.
Ohio State finished fifth as a team at the Big Ten Tournament, scoring 89 points. Penn State won the conference title, scoring 170.5 points to second-place Michigan's 123.5. Nebraska and Iowa followed in third and fourth.
Four other Buckeye grapplers secured automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament alongside Mendez, Welsh and Feldman on Sunday.
No. 16 Ryder Rogotzke is in after finishing fifth at 184 pounds. No. 21 Luke Geog (197 pounds) and No. 10 Dylan D'Emilio (149) punched their tickets with sixth-place finishes. No. 29 Isaac Wilcox did the same by finishing ninth at 157 pounds.
No. 10 Nic Bouzakis had a disappointing tournament at 133 pounds, as he was upset by the 14-seed in the first round as the three-seed and was eliminated two matches later. He can still make the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid.
