Northern Iowa wrestling drops dual to Oklahoma State, but records two top-10 victories

No. 22 Northern Iowa wrestling lost a tough one to No. 5 Oklahoma State, dropping its first Big 12 dual of the season by a score of 22-12 to the Cowboys.

The Panthers lost six of the 10 bouts, with three of those being bonus-point defeats. In total, UNI faced five top-10 wrestlers in Stillwater and lost to three of them. However, they won some of the biggest matchups on paper.

Cael Happel, a 141-pound junior, drew No. 9 Tagen Jamison in his match. Tied at one with less than a minute to go in the third, both Happel and Jamison took a shot. Happel was able to readjust down to Jamison’s upper thighs and bring him down for a 4-1 lead and eventually the 4-2 win by decision. That is Happel’s third victory over a top-10 ranked opponent this season, with his previous two coming against No. 7 Brock Hardy (Nebraska).

The headliner of this dual was at 184 pounds, between Northern Iowa’s No. 1 Parker Keckeisen and Oklahoma State’s No. 2 Dustin Plott. Keckeisen entered this bout undefeated and left it the same way. Trailing 5-4 at one time, Keckeisen scored on an escape and two takedowns to rally for his 29th-consecutive regular season victory. In no uncertain terms, Keckeisen has cemented himself as the best in the nation at 184 pounds.

Still, those wins were not enough as the Panthers picked up just two other wins from outside of their top guys. No. 14 Ryder Downey (157 pounds) won over No. 18 Teague Travis while No. 23 Wyatt Voelker (197 pounds) defeated unranked Jersey Robb.

UNI will have a chance to bounce back against Oklahoma on Saturday at 7 p.m.

Here are the full match-by-match results of UNI’s loss to Oklahoma State.

Oklahoma State 22, Northern Iowa 12

• 125: Troy Spratley (OKST) over Trever Anderson (UNI) (Dec 3-2)
• 133: Daton Fix (OKST) over Julian Farber (UNI) (MD 18-4)
• 141: Cael Happel (UNI) over Tagen Jamison (OKST) (Dec 4-2)
• 149: Jordan Williams (OKST) over Adam Allard (UNI) (TF 20-5 6:02)
• 157: Ryder Downey (UNI) over Teague Travis (OKST) (Dec 4-1)
• 165: Izzak Olejnik (OKST) over RJ Weston (UNI) (MD 12-2)
• 174: Brayden Thompson (OKST) over Jared Simma (UNI) (Dec 6-3)
• 184: Parker Keckeisen (UNI) over Dustin Plott (OKST) (Dec 12-6)
• 197: Wyatt Voelker (UNI) over Jersey Robb (OKST) (Dec 5-1)
• 285: Konner Doucet (OKST) over Tyrell Gordon (UNI) (TB-1 4-3)

Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23.