On Sunday afternoon in Gill Coliseum, Oregon State wrestling hosted and fell to another top-ranked team: the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
This marks the fourth loss against the Cowboys for head coach Chris Pendleton in his time as a head coach, as well as making the Beavers home record 0-2.
“We’ve wrestled the number two and three teams in the country. It’s an ambitious schedule, but I’m glad we did it because we need to be exposed in the areas where we have to get better,” Pendleton said.
Oregon State junior Maximo Renteria started once again at the 125-pound match, giving a great effort to bring the match to overtime after being down in points early. However, Oklahoma State sophomore Troy Spratley was able to catch the first takedown in overtime to earn himself the win.
“That was a tough match against a top ten kid, so Max (Renteria) has shown consistently that he is one of the guys that can knock on the door and be a title threat in March,” Pendleton said.
This marks Renteria’s first loss of the season, his record being 2-1.
Sophomore Jordan Elliot would be the second Beaver to fall in the following match at 133. He was unable to score any points aside from two escapes, leaving a rather easy win by decision for freshman Cael Hughes.
The 141 match followed the same downward story for the Beavers, giving the Cowboys their third win in a row thanks to sophomore Tagen Jamison, who performed multiple elevated takedowns on sophomore Nash Singleton to win by decision.
The win streak for the Cowboys would only continue with another win decision captured over Beaver sophomore Ayden Garver by junior Carter Young in their 149-pound match.
In the match at 157 pounds, Oregon State got the change in energy it needed from freshman Ethan Stiles. He was able to gain an early lead with a takedown by his opponent’s hip. He was barely able to escape a pin when junior Teague Travis caught him by surprise.
However, this did allow the match to become tied leading to the meets’ second overtime, where Stiles captured a very close victory after he was able to outmaneuver Travis on the ground to score the takedown needed to win.
“One of the things I was happy with was he (Ethan Stiles) didn’t let the moment get too big for him and he took chances,” Pendleton said.
The Beavers were finally on the board, but were down 14-3 at the meet halfway point.
The first match out of the half came in the 165 bout where Beavers sophomore Murphy Menke came out fast offensively, managing to secure senior Cameron’s Amines leg within the first 10 seconds.
However, Amine turned the match around quickly and took a 9-2 lead heading into the third where he would win by decision.
Beaver grad student Sean Harman had quite a tall challenge in front of him in his 174-pound match against senior Dean Hamiti Jr., who is ranked fourth in the weight class.
Hamiti Jr. showed a major difference in defensive ability, never let Harman secure a takedown, and barely escaped from the bottom position. The Cowboys would win by technical fall and give them another win streak.
The following match at 184 was another mountain of a matchup for Beaver freshman T.J Mcdonnel facing number three ranked senior Dustin Plott. Mcdonnel was able to score the first takedown, but eventually, tech fell in the third period.
The difference in rankings finally took a turn to the Beavers’ side in the 197 bout. Beavers ranked fifth senior Trey Munoz placed against 20th ranked senior Luker Surber.
This match led to quite a surprising upset win by decision from Surber, who gained a 4-0 lead early and focused on defense until the end.
With the final heavyweight match, it was Oklahoma State’s Wyatt Hendrickson who set the tone early with a single-leg takedown on senior Bret Mower and continued to score takedowns until securing another tech fall for the Cowboys in the third.
This had the only victory for the Beavers coming from Stiles with the final score of the meet being 36-3.
Oregon State wrestling will now travel to Annapolis, Maryland, where they will participate in the Navy Classic tournament, which will take place at 6 a.m. on Saturday.