There is no secret ingredient to the success Iowa men’s wrestler Alex Marinelli has cooked up at the Big Ten Championships over the last three years. The senior 165-pounder has claimed an individual title in the last three iterations of the event.

Marinelli has never been seeded lower than No. 2 at the Big Ten Championships. The worst he’s ever finished in the conference tournament was sixth place in 2018, which was still good for an automatic NCAA Tournament berth.

“I just love to compete, and I love the Big Ten Tournament,” Marinelli said at a Tuesday videoconference. “It’s awesome. It’s a great atmosphere … I feel like, if you get a good seed, you win a match and you’re into the [semifinals]. You’re not looking ahead, but it’s just kinda how it is. You win three matches and you’re the Big Ten Champion, if you’re the No. 1 or No. 2 seed.”

“I don’t think there’s any secret recipe or secret there,” Marinelli added. “It’s just going out there and dominating.”

If Marinelli claims another individual Big Ten title this week at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska, he’d become the eighth Hawkeye to win four conference championships.

Despite the history he’ll be chasing in Lincoln, Marinelli still has his sights set on the 2022 NCAA Championships.

“Knowing that the Big Ten is a stacked conference, it is a tough thing to do,” Marinelli said of winning four league titles. “I’m not really downplaying that — but also, knowing that everybody remembers the national champ, not a lot of people can name every Big Ten champ there was if they don’t perform that well at the nationals.

“You gotta go out there and win the Big Tens, but also end it the right way,” Marinelli added. “Yeah, I want to be a four-time Big Ten champ. But I haven’t gotten what I ultimately want, which is a national title.”

Marinelli has had his share of chances to win a national championship. He was the No. 1 seed at 165 pounds in the 2019, 2020, and 2021 NCAA Championships. The lowest seed he’s ever received for the national tournament is No. 5 in 2018.

Even with superb seeding, Marinelli’s highest finish in the NCAA Championships is sixth.

For the last two years, Marinelli hasn’t even gotten a shot at winning a national title. The 2020 NCAA Championships were canceled because of COVID-19, and Marinelli was eliminated from the 2021 tournament via medical forfeit.

Before he was knocked out of title contention last year, Marinelli lost to Stanford’s Shane Griffith, who went on to become the NCAA’s 165-pound champion. After the 2021 NCAA Tournament concluded, Iowa head coach Tom Brands told The Des Moines Register that Marinelli suffered a rib injury in the final moments of his match with Griffith.

The 2022 NCAA Tournament will be Marinelli’s last chance to win the national title he covets. And this week’s Big Ten Championships could help Marinelli earn another No. 1 seed at the national tournament.

Marinelli is the Big Ten Tournament’s No. 2 seed at 165 pounds. He trails only Ohio State’s Carson Kharchla, who dealt “The Bull” his lone loss of the 2021-22 regular season on Jan. 16.

Marinelli had never wrestled Kharchla before he lost to him via 3-2 decision six weeks ago.

“The match that I lost this year, it wasn’t me,” Marinelli said. “That’s just not how I wrestle. [Associate head coach Terry Brands] is always telling me, ‘Keep it simple and do your job.’”

Marinelli will also have to wrestle the likes of Wisconsin’s Dean Hamiti and Michigan’s Cam Amine. Hamiti is 20-1 this year, and his lone loss came to Marinelli in 8-5 fashion at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Feb. 5. Amine is 13-4 overall in 2021-22 and 0-1 all-time against Marinelli. Marinelli and Amine were supposed to match up at last year’s NCAA Championships before Marinelli dropped out of the tournament.

“Guys game for the Big Tens, they game for the nationals,” Marinelli said. “They take it a lot more serious or they get up more for these matches than they did probably the dual meets. It’s just prepared me to be on my game right out of the gate … You gotta treat every match as if it’s the finals.”

The 2022 Big Ten Championships will be Marinelli’s final conference soiree, but that isn’t changing how he approaches the tournament or the amount of pressure he puts on himself.

“This is my last one, so it is a little different,” Marinelli said. “I’ve wrestled my whole life. I’ve gone to a lot of big matches and big tournaments. I have a lot of experience there, but also, knowing that it is my last time, it is a little more special. I’m not getting wrapped up in that. [I’m] just going out there and wrestling and taking care of business.

“It’d be awesome to be a four-time Big Ten champ and then a national champ,” Marinelli added. “It’d be great, but we got matches ahead of that and we just gotta take care of business.”