Wolverines dominate OSU with 38-7 victory

Cody Crawford’s dominant win for Oregon State to conclude Sunday’s wrestling match was one of the lone bright spots in the team’s 38-7 loss in a dual meet with Michigan.

Crawford, a redshirt junior, showed off a unique combination of size, strength, and athleticism to take down Michigan’s Dan Perry by a 15-3 majority decision.  

Crawford along with Joey Palmer highlighted the match for the Beavers, claiming the two sole victories on the day.

Palmer, a redshirt senior, won the 141 matchup defeating Michigan’s Sal Profaci by decision in a low scoring 4-1 match. Palmer wrestled at 133 last year, but has made the jump up to 141 for the upcoming season. However, that isn’t his only goal his senior year.

“Being consistent. That’s probably the biggest thing is just being consistent with everything,” Palmer said. “Making sure that every time I step on the mat, I have the same ritual, that’s probably my goal this year.”

Another wrestler who made a change this season is Crawford. He wrestled last year at 197, but has since made the change to heavyweight (285) this year.

“I’ve been wrestling here for three years at 197; we just decided it’s best for me and the team to go up to heavyweight this year,” said Crawford. “This is my first match in college at heavyweight.”

“I’m feeling really good about my weight now, where I’m at,” stated Crawford. “[I’m] just going to get bigger, stronger, and keep going.” 

Despite the bright spots in Crawford and Palmer, there is still much to improve on for the team going forward.

“We just didn’t fight hard enough. We have a lot of matches here we didn’t compete,” admitted Coach Jim Zalesky afterwards. “We kind of hit a wall and didn’t push through…we didn’t compete hard enough.”

However, the Beavs are reigning wrestling Pac-12 Champs look to retain the title again this season. 

“It’s all about the end of the year. Started off, probably not our best performance. We got a lot of room to get better,” Crawford said. “Our coaches will analyze where we’re at, and we’ll come back next week, and every other week, probably better than we were before.” 

The Beavers hope to come back stronger moving forward, especially approaching conference play starting at the beginning of the new year. OSU’s next match is the first weekend in December, where they will compete in the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invite.