Cowboys top Sooners for 17th straight Bedlam dual win
STILLWATER — After nearly pinning OU’s Jacob Butler in the final seconds of the 157-pound match in Thursday night’s Bedlam wrestling dual, Oklahoma State wrestler Kaden Gfeller walked toward the edge of the mat, blew kisses to the crowd and emphatically led them in an OSU chant.
A sixth-year senior who had stepped away from the sport for nearly five months last offseason before reversing course, Gfeller will never wrestle inside Gallagher-Iba Arena again. Never wrestle another Bedlam dual.
So he soaked in his victory that helped the sixth-ranked Cowboys to a 26-6 victory over OU before a crowd of 6,373 mostly orange-clad fans.
“I wish they would’ve called pin,” Gfeller said with a laugh, referencing his nearfall in the final 30 seconds of the match. “It’s a lot of fun to wrestle in Gallagher, especially when there’s a lot of people. I feel like the crowd was pretty rowdy tonight, especially for it being a Thursday.
“It was a great experience.” Gfeller’s late nearfall points helped him post a 14-3 major decision — in a match that was tied at 3 after one period — and give OSU a 14-3 team lead.
Three matches later at 184 pounds, OSU’s Travis Wittlake and OU’s Keegan Moore were tied at 4 until Wittlake secured a takedown with a minute remaining. Wittlake rode Moore — who began his career at OSU — for the final minute of the match to earn a 7-4 decision and seal the team victory for the Pokes.
OSU has now won 17 straight Bedlam duals, dating back to 2013. For the season, this was OSU’s fifth straight victory heading into the regular-season finale at second-ranked Iowa on Sunday.
Daton Fix, OSU’s 133-pounder, put his team up 4-3 with a major decision in the second match of the night, and sophomore Carter Young came through with one of the most important wins of the dual at 141.
Young, a sophomore ranked 15th in the weight class, scored a reversal and a takedown in the second period, then held on for a 5-3 upset over seventhranked Mosha Schwartz. After starting the year with a 6-8 record, Young has won seven of his last eight matches.
“I thought for the most part, it was one of his most complete matches,” OSU coach John Smith said.
OSU 149-pounder Victor Voinovich, a redshirt freshman, followed with a 2-0 decision before Gfeller’s major to put the Cowboys in control.
After OU’s Gerrit Nijenhuis won at 165, OSU responded with victories in the next four matches, including an exciting 7-2 decision by Dustin Plott over OU’s Tate Picklo.
Luke Surber came out on top in a battle of former Tuttle stars at 197 pounds. Surber edged his former teammate Carson Berryhill 4-1. And heavyweight Konner Doucet capped the night with a 2-1 overtime win avoiding a takedown in the final tiebreaker period.
After seeing the Bedlam dual come down to the fial match before his Cowboys secured a 21-15 win in Norman two months ago, Smith was pleased to take eight of the 10 matches this time around. But at the same time, he still saw room for more from his squad after a win that improved his coaching record to 56-6-3 against OU.
“There’s part of me going, we wrestled to, maybe, our opponent a little bit more than I wanted to in some of our matches,” Smith said. “Some of our matches, we turned some losses around that we lost down there, and won.
“We win Bedlam. You have to have an attitude if you’re gonna have these little cocky words that you say. I tell the guys all the time, we win Bedlam, but you’re gonna have to have an attitude if we’re gonna go around saying that.”
Oklahoma State (14-2, 8-1 Big 12) hits the road to conclude the regular season against second-ranked Iowa at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
The Sooners (9-8, 2-6) are finished until the Big 12 Championships, set for March 4-5 at the BOK Center in Tulsa.