John Smith talks about Oklahoma State wrestling win vs. Iowa State
Oklahoma State wrestling coach John Smith talks about win vs. Iowa State
STILLWATER — Call it the Three Falls of Bedlam.
The Oklahoma State wrestling team opened Sunday’s Bedlam dual with three straight falls — one of the technical variety, and two of the flat-on-your-back kind — to ignite a dominant 34-9 victory over OU.
“The first three matches… it’s been awhile since I’ve seen that, just wham, bam, bam,” OSU coach John Smith said. “That’s the way to start. We’re 10 minutes into the dual and three matches are down.”
And just like that, it became crystal clear that the second-ranked Cowboys (14-0) were on their way to a 19th straight win over their Sooner rivals in a nearly full Gallagher-Iba Arena, only supplying a little extra juice to next week’s showdown with Iowa.
“It does a lot for a team, for sure,” said OSU redshirt freshman 141-pounder Tagen Jamison. “The energy the rest of the week for a dual like that, it’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be really helpful in practice, training-wise. I don’t think there’s a better week for us to end this week and go into next week wrestling Iowa.”
OSU needed less than a minute to score its first points, when 125-pound redshirt freshman Troy Spratley pinned OU freshman Conrad Hendriksen 1:03 into the match.
OSU super-senior Daton Fix, ranked third at 133 pounds, followed with a 21-5 technical fall early in the third period, and Jamison found himself taking the mat much earlier than he expected.
“Usually I have like 15 minutes to go through my routine,” the eighth-ranked 141-pounder said. “When Troy came running in the locker room, I was like, ‘Oh crap.’ So I had to hurry up and throw my singlet on and run out there, because I knew Daton was gonna run the score up pretty quick, too.”
The rushed preparation didn’t slow Jamison, who turned an early takedown into a pin just 54 seconds into the match.
The Cowboys added a major decision at 157 pounds, then two more technical falls in the upper weights.
OSU’s Teague Travis, ranked No. 11 at 157, used a second-period takedown and nearfall to build his lead on the way to an 11-1 win over Jared Hill. Travis wrestled his final high school season at Stillwater, and is quite familiar with Hill, a Broken Arrow product.
“I wrestled him multiple times my senior year of high school — wrestled him in the state finals, actually,” Travis said. “So I knew kind of what to expect. I knew that I was gonna have to be aggressive and score a lot of points. And I knew toward the end of the match that the points would be there, my shots would be there.”
At 184, OSU’s second-ranked senior Dustin Plott picked up a 19-4 technical fall.
A battle of former Tuttle Tigers at 197 went the way of OSU’s Luke Surber, who scored early and often in a 17-2 technical fall over Carson Berryhill — who weighed in at 184 but moved up to wrestle in place of sixth-ranked Stephen Buchanan.
Overall, the Cowboys recorded 21 takedowns to just two for OU.
Bright moments were rare for the Sooners, but they won a trio of tightly contested matches. At 149 pounds, OU’s Willie McDougald used a first-period takedown for a 5-2 win, and at 174, Tate Picklo scored a takedown with :09 on the overtime clock for a 5-2 sudden-victory win.
And the Sooners added a thrilling 2-1 decision at heavyweight when Josh Heindselman scored a late reversal and barely managed to ride out OSU’s Konner Doucet over the final 30 seconds for the win.
That wrapped up the regular season for the Sooners until the Big 12 Championships at the BOK Center in Tulsa on March 9-10.
The Cowboys close with the looming visit from No. 4 Iowa at 2 p.m. next Sunday at GIA.
“I think it just shows that we’re starting to get to the end of the season and into postseason, that we’re getting better every single dual and every single week,” Travis said. “We’re doing the right things and we just need to keep doing what we’re doing, and not make things bigger than they need to be.
“Keep sticking to the process.”
Bedlam wrestling results
Sunday at Gallagher-Iba Arena, Stillwater
OSU 34, OU 9
- 125: Troy Spratley, OSU, pinned Conrad Hendrksen, 1:03
- 133: Daton Fix, OSU, tech. fall, Gave Vidlak, 21-5 (5:33)
- 141: Tagen Jamison, OSU, pinned Carter Schmidt, 0:54
- 149: Willie McDougald, OU, dec. Jordan Williams, 5-2
- 157: Teague Travis, OSU, major dec. Jared Hill, 11-1
- 165: Izzak Olejnik, OSU, dec. Cael Carlson, 7-2
- 174: Tate Picklo, OU, dec. Brayden Thompson, 5-2 SV
- 184: Dustin Plott, OSU, tech. fall Giuseppe Hoose, 19-4 (5:50)
- 197: Luke Surber, OSU, tech. Fall Carson Berryhill, 17-2 (4:19)
- HWT: Josh Heinselman, OU, dec. Konner Doucet, 2-1
