Berks brothers Nathan and Matthew Lackman make history by wrestling each other for title at NCAA Division III Wrestling National Championships [Video]
Apr. 5—Nathan Lackman had just dramatically won his second consecutive national championship.
But following his 3-1 triumph in sudden victory in the 165-pound final at the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships last month in Roanoke, Va., the Rhode Island College senior didn't celebrate wildly.
The Wernersville resident didn't visibly rejoice at all.
Instead, as his opponent stayed down on his hands and knees, face to the mat, Lackman placed a consoling hand on the back of the other wrestler.
That's because it was his younger brother, Matthew Lackman of Alvernia.
"My initial reaction was definitely just to make sure that I was there for him," Nathan said. "Any other opponent, if I didn't know them, obviously, it would have been jumping up and down, celebrating, but that's just not the situation that I was in with Matthew being my brother and the fact that I care about him so much.
"It was really, really a hard win. It was the hardest win for me ever."
The Lackmans, who are Bethlehem Catholic grads, made history when they became the first brothers to face each other in an NCAA wrestling final in any division.
But that history meant little in an immediate aftermath of mixed, conflicted emotions.
"Obviously, if I wanted someone else to win, not that I wanted someone else to win, but it'd be him," said Matthew, a junior who has two more seasons of eligibility. "The thing I keep telling people, I still lost in the national finals. As cool as it was to be in the national finals, the goals weren't achieved, you know, and luckily I still have some more time to achieve those goals. I don't really have a word to pinpoint what it felt like."
"I think that it was some of the most incredible and awful feelings I've ever had as a coach," Alvernia coach Kriss Bellanca said. "Incredible to see both boys make the finals having known them for long before they were college competitors, knowing the parents, being very close to Matt and Sue. It was crazy, incredible, awesome and terrible at the same time. It is the best way I can put it."
The matchup seemed inevitable to others as the season progressed and Nathan was ranked first in Division III at 165 pounds, and Matthew second. They went into nationals as the top two seeds.
But the road to that moment was long and far from straight.
Matthew said he didn't like wrestling at first and hated going to practice. Nathan said he stepped away for a time as a senior in high school.
Nathan ended up at Rhode Island College in large part because his sister, Briana, attended Johnson & Wales, also located in Providence. When Nathan visited her, he went to a wrestling club in the city, and through that got connected to Rhode Island College's coach, Jay Jones.
Matthew began his collegiate career at Division I Clarion, but opted to transfer after a semester
He was subsequently contacted by Bellanca, who was trying to build a foundation for a young program that's first season was 2019-20.
"I kind of knew right away that this is the place that I wanted to be," Matthew said. "It was close to home and everything. Everything just kind of worked out."
In 2022, Nathan won the national title at 157 and Matthew finished fifth at 165 to earn All-American honors.
The one constant was — and remains — each other. Both say they talk every day and remain extremely close.
"It's rarely talking about wrestling," Matthew said. "We're more than just wrestlers. We're humans that interact with people, doing other things in our life that we like doing. But yeah, he's still my brother at the end of the day."
"We're always connected in some way," Nathan said. "We have something outside of wrestling, a brotherhood outside of wrestling, a life outside of wrestling that is way more important than just what wrestling has to offer."
The two did discuss wrestling, at least a little bit, prior to the season. Nathan said he didn't think he would be able to make weight at 157 pounds, meaning he'd be moving up to the same weight class as Matthew.
"Wrestling season is such a marathon," Nathan said. "You need to take care of yourself and I love my brother so much and he cares about me and I'm always his biggest fan and he's always mine, but at the end of the day, we have to do stuff to take care of our own self before we take care of each other. That decision to go 165 was a tough one and we tried to avoid it, but it was just best for both of us."
Both were dominant throughout the season. Matthew, who was named the MAC Wrestler of the Year, won the MAC and NCAA Southeast Region titles. He finished 47-1 with 16 falls, seven technical falls and eight major decisions.
Nathan, the New England Wrestling Association Wrestler of the Year for the second straight season, finished 39-3, with his losses all to Division I opponents at the Midlands Championship. He has not lost a match or given up a takedown, reversal or back points to a Division III opponent since 2020-21.
Nathan's toughest opponent was likely Matthew when he came home for the holidays. The two worked out and both say that Matthew had the best of things.
"I got two takedowns on him," Matthew said. "It was looking pretty well, and then that happened in the finals. And it was like, 'Man, what happened?' "
"That was definitely something that was in the back of my mind the whole (championship) match," Nathan said, "because, yeah, he beat me up when I came home."
Both know that practices are different from matches, especially a national final. Such was the uniqueness in this case that the Lackmans' mother, Sue, was allowed to sit in the middle, rather than in one of her sons' corners as is customary. Bellanca said their father, Matt, wanted to keep it about the boys and said he would sit wherever.
"They kind of want to stay out of this one," Nathan said when asked if his parents would be willing to talk about what they experienced. "They keep saying to us it's not about us, it's about you guys."
In the final, Matthew took a 1-0 lead with an escape 10 seconds into the second period. Nathan tied it with an escape 46 seconds into third.
"We know each other so well, we sort of wrestle the same way," Matthew said. "If you saw the match, we're both over-collar snapping, both getting that same kind of shot, probably both got the same amount of shots during the match. And we both put some time in on top, both got out and, yeah, it's just we're brothers, so we kind of gotta expect that."
Nathan won it with a takedown 50 seconds into the sudden victory overtime.
"I knew that if I was going to win, I needed to win in the first sudden victory period," Nathan said, "and Matthew went for a move. Props to him. He went for it. I ended up just coming on top, but it could have been a different match any other day."
In the weeks since, both have had time to reflect.
Matthew, who became the highest finisher in any sport in Alvernia history, has gotten right back to work. He has set big goals for himself — "One of the greatest at the end of the day, you know, seven-time world champ, three-time Olympic champ, all that stuff," he said — and is ready to continue on that path.
"Not that I'm not happy for him," Matthew said. "But I had to look at myself and say, 'You know, you didn't get the job done, so you got to get back to work right away.' I am sick of talking about it a little bit, but it's kind of something that I have to talk about since it's a big thing. But I'm looking forward to the future."
Nathan has viewed the match as bringing his wrestling career full circle. He said Matthew was his first wrestling partner and — with Nathan saying he doesn't intend to use the extra year of eligibility brought on by the pandemic — his last.
"There's so much more to that match than just the win and the loss," he said. "You know, there's so many moments that went into that, getting us both there. So it wasn't the result that mattered to me, it was the fact that I had Matthew throughout all my wrestling years and that I got my last wrestling match ever with him. That's what meant most to me."
