Oregon State ended with three third-place finishes, three second-place, and three champions of their brackets. 

OSU had the honor of hosting the Pac-12 championships in Gill Coliseum on Thursday afternoon, presenting competition for championship gold.

This pinned multiple Beavers against other top-ranked individual competitors from Little Rock, Cal Poly and CSU Bakersfield.

Each weight class in the competition featured a four-man bracket, with one round of semi-finals, and then the final round following to decide the medals.

Overall team scores are also calculated depending on the types of victories for each competitor, to determine the accumulated scores for each team’s amounts of wins.

After the semi-final rounds, the Beavers had four wrestlers in contention for third place and six wrestlers in contention for first.

Moving into the third-place matches began with a third-place victory by CSU’s Richard Castro-Sandoval in the 125-match over Jayden Carson from Little Rock by decision.

OSU Sophomore Damion Elliot solidified third place over  Santino Sanchez from CSUin his 133-match, making him the first Beaver to solidify a spot on the podium.

The 141-match was then taken by CSU’s Hayden Zinkin, who showed superior endurance over Cal Poly’s Corbin Shepherd to win by decision.

157-match ended the same way, but this time the tech fall being by the hands of Cal Poly’s Legend Lamer over CSU’s Jose Farias.

OSU senior Kekana Fouret had a chance to secure a podium spot in his 167-match with a two-point lead with 20 seconds left, but in a crucial attempted roll, he allowed Guillermo Escobedo from CSU to get a takedown and a near fall point to put himself up by one at the end of the match.

Beaver senior Trey Munoz added to his many podium appearances by winning third at the 197-match. 

He showcased great ability to capturing single legs and balancing. Once he got to ten points, he didn’t have much need to produce much offense, and only needed to let the clock run out, then claiming the second third-place finish for OSU.

Following suit, senior Brett Mower brought home an impressive tech fall win in the final third-place match. 

Mower started much better than his first match, scoring the first two takedowns. He was continuously able to elevate his opponent off balance and score takedowns until the refs blew the match dead. 

This put the third place finishes at three for Oregon State.

The championship round for the Pac-12 began at the HW class, Trevor Tinker for Cal Poly never allowed CSU’s Jake Andrews to get up from the floor, and won the championship eight to nothing by decision.

Revolving back to the 125 class, junior Maximo Renteria was the first OSU wrestler to compete for the gold. 

Renteria started strong by gaining control of his opponent’s hip and quickly gained a lead with the first two takedowns of the match. 

Even when Cal Poly’s Koda Holeman managed to get a hold of Renteria’s leg, it didn’t take long for him to sprawl and break free. OSU would have its first Pac-12 champion of the meet with a win by a major decision for Renteria.

Little Rock wrestler Nasir Bailey then took the championship at 133 with a takedown in overtime. 

OSU sophomore Nash Singleton’s match at 141 was filled with nonstop aggression. 

Singleton slammed his opponent multiple times by the waist and even accidentally sent him tumbling off the mat when they wandered out of bounds. 

Singleton was eventually able to put in a half nelson and grab his opponent’s leg while on the ground, allowing him to roll his opponent over easily into a pin and secure his first championship.

“I already beat the guy earlier in the year and I didn’t wrestle very good then and I knew coming off a full day of hydration, food, fully getting recovered, seeing all the guys doing a great job, everyone doing amazing, I knew this was gonna go my way,” Singleton said.

Immediately following was the top-ranked freshman Ethan Stiles at 149 looking to finish his more than impressive freshman year. 

Stiles’ opponent from Little Rock, Jordan Williams, however made great use of side control to score multiple takedowns and make Stiles play from behind. 

The match grew out of reach when Stiles was caught in a cradle that awarded Williams a fair number of near-fall points. Williams would take victory by decision and left a frustrated Stiles in second place.

The final 157-match also shared the result of OSU having to settle for second. 

Sophomore CJ Hamblin had a lead early but during a skirmish on the ground, the refs awarded his opponent rather questionable takedown points. This was immediately challenged by the coaching staff, but was not overturned. 

At the end of the third, Hamblin needed an escape point to tie the match, but Little Rock’s Matty Bianchi held him down long enough to win by decision to claim the championship.

Joseph Bianchi then would follow his brother’s example with a win in overtime for Little Rock in the 165 class.

Little Rock’s winning streak would only continue into the 174 match. 

OSU’s Murphy Menke was overwhelmed by the leg control executed by Tyler Brennen and not able to generate any offense, offering little resistance to Brennen’s claim to gold by decision win.

Sophomore TJ McDonnell was the last Beaver to step on the mat on the night at 184. It seemed at first that it would be too much to overcome the lead McDonnell’s opponent had going late into the third. 

Down by two with less than 15 seconds left, McDonnell threw an outside shot that landed and gave him the latest takedown possible, and this would tie the match and send it to overtime. 

The extra period then ended as fast as it could have with mere moments after the whistle sounded, and McDonnell had secured a double leg takedown. This ended the match and McDonnell earned his first Pac-12 championship.

“I was told by my coaches all year it was gonna click and it finally did. I looked at the clock, I saw nine seconds left and I figured I might as well let it fly,” McDonnell said.

With their sights already set on titles, Oregon State will now look forward to their representatives in the NCAA championships in Philadelphia on March 20.