Jonah Niesenbaum: Blue Devil of the Month

A relative newcomer to the sport of wrestling, Jonah Niesenbaum entered his senior season with a cumulative career record of 20-36 in three years of competition for the Blue Devils. But Niesenbaum’s fourth campaign has been nothing short of sensational. Entering the ACC Championships on Mar. 5 in Raleigh, the Duke heavyweight owned a 24-3 mark that included victories in all of his conference bouts and a 13-1 ledger in duals.

Ranked 17th in the nation, Niesenbaum won two early-season tournaments — Battle At The Citadel and the Keystone Classic. The latter featured wins over two nationally-ranked opponents in the semifinals and final, catapulting Niesenbaum into the rankings for the first time in his career. His record entering postseason included a 4-2 mark vs. ranked opponents; coming into the season he was 0-13 vs. ranked opponents over the previous three seasons.

Niesenbaum, who first took up the sport seriously as a junior in high school, credits Duke assistant coach Tom Erickson — a former two-time All-America heavyweight at Oklahoma State — for guiding his development.

“Coming into Duke I didn’t have a ton of technical experience,” he said. “Working with Coach Erickson, we slowed things downed and focused on the fundamentals. I’ve got a good stance, I move my feet well and those have been the things that have gotten me to this level, just fundamental wrestling.

“A lot of people who have been wrestling their whole lives, they’ve built bad habits, whereas I came in and I’m very moldable. I like to say I wrestle like a big baby, like a toddler. I do the very basic things but I do them right.”

From a combined four wins his first two years, to 16 last year, to 24 and counting this year, Niesenbaum has done a lot right on his college wrestling journey.