The night didn’t go the way Penn State wrestling signee Jayden James had planned.
Competing at 160 pounds, James, who is the No. 1 wrestler in the country from his weight class per FloWrestling, took on No. 13 Reagan Milheim, a former PIAA State Champ from Warrior Run High School who is committed to American.
James, who went 74-0 over his last two seasons at New Jersey’s Delbarton High School, isn’t used to being pushed in his matches.
But Milheim proved to be a tough customer. He took James down not once, but twice, with the second one tying the bout at 10 with 1:17 left. James ended up dominating the end of the match, getting a 17-10 win, but overall, he wasn’t thrilled with his performance.
“Not the way I wanted it to go,” James told Nittany Sports Now exclusively afterward. “I mean, I hate giving up takedowns, so giving up two takedowns isn’t too fun. But the kid’s a tough kid. It was a hard match.”
James didn’t feel he was in the shape he should have been going into the bout.
”Getting a little better conditioning,” James said. “Probably wasn’t in the physique that I should have been for this match. And then work on my finishes. My offense slipped up on the finishes, got a little lazy there. So work on that.”
But a win is a win, and James won while being coached by one of his future teammates.
James has known PJ Duke for five years, with both of them training at the KD Training Center, run by Khaled Dassan.
James described Duke, who just capped off a fantastic true freshman season with a third-place finish at the NCAA Championships in Cleveland last weekend, as “one of my best friends.”
Duke has helped James become one of the top high school wrestlers in the country (No. 2 pound for pound) and James helped Duke train for his two upset wins over four-time NCAA champ Yianni Diakomihalis at Final X last summer.
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“Before he left for college, he was my training partner every day,” James said. “So, getting beat up by him for four years straight is going to make you way tougher and a way better wrestler. So he’s helped me in that aspect, and also in the mindset of watching him throughout these tournaments, helping him train for Yanni in the warmup before Yani at Final X. Just good visualization to see where I need to be and where I need to get to.”
Duke and James aren’t the only Penn State people with ties to KD.
Dassan is close with Penn State legend and four-time NCAA champ Aaron Brooks, as well as two-time champ Roman Bravo-Young, an currently training Rocco Welsh, who ended his first year at PSU as the runner-up at 184 pounds and was also in attendance Saturday.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Two of Penn State’s Class of 2027 commits— Gavin Mangano and Will Soto— are also KD’s guys.
“It’s awesome to have people going on this journey with you,” James said. “It’s not easy. It can be hard at times, but having like-minded people with you by your side, that makes it a lot better.”
From there, James will go to Penn State after the school year ends.
As far as weight classes go, James said he’ll compete wherever coach Cael Sanderson—who was in attendance Saturday— asks him to.
Right now, the general thought is that he’ll compete at 174, which could make things interesting if Hodge Trophy favorite Mitchell Mesenbrink stays at 165.
Penn State is losing two-time national champ Levi Haines to graduation, creating an opening at 174, so if Mesenbrink stays where he is and Sanderson decides to redshirt Duke, James could be a Day One starter.
He’s ready for that possibility, and cited something former Penn State national champ Nico Megaludis told the Pittsburgh Wrestling Classic performers the night before the event.
“A horse is always ready for battle when he’s called upon,” James said. “So that’s kind of my mindset. I’m just going to be ready for whatever the team needs. If it needs me to wrestle a dual, wrestle the whole season, I’m ready for it either way.”
If James ends up redshirting, he’ll make the most of that, too.
“Just more time to get better. There’s still other competitions,” he said. “Freestyle, so I’ll be fine. I’m still in the room everyday, getting better, helping out other guys, helping the team. So anything I can do to help the team win, I’m happy.”
James will put his talent on display against older competition at the U20 U.S. Open next month in Vegas.
He’s had a lot of success at the freestyle level, having won a U17 World Championship this summer in Athens at 71 KG.
Now, he’s looking forward to continuing on that success.
“I’m excited to go out there, wrestle my style, wrestle hard, put up points on these college guys and start a new chapter of my wrestling career,” he said.
