ASU falls; Oregon St. repeats
Arizona State played host to the Pac-12 Wrestling Championships for the first time in nearly a decade on Saturday, and with how accommodating the Sun Devils proved, don't be surprised if the conference pushes to bring the tournament to Tempe more often.
All three of the ASU wrestlers to reach the finals were beaten, including a pair of top-seeded grapplers in Jake Meredith (197 pounds) and Blake Stauffer (174). Second-seeded Kevin Radford lost at 184 pounds for the Sun Devils.
Oregon State easily repeated as team champs with 158 points, finishing with a comfortable cushion over runner-up Boise State (136.5 points) while the hosts placed well back in third with 110.5 points.
ASU coach Shawn Charles didn't hide his displeasure with the result, taking some of the blame and insisting his team will be more prepared for the upcoming national championships. Meredith, Stauffer, Radford and Levi Cooper (285) are all expected to wrestle in the event in Des Moines.
"It's very disappointing,” Charles said.
“We're in our own home gym and we just can't get it done. We'd been training really hard, getting ready for this. We need to regroup, rethink about how we're going to get these guys ready for the NCAA Tournament."
For Meredith, it was an unfortunate ending to a stellar Pac-12 career that saw him rebound from a season-ending knee injury last season as well as some concussion problems this year. The senior won a Pac-10 title at 184 in 2010, and has become one of the nation's top defensive wrestlers, but he couldn't muster any offense in falling 4-0 to Oregon State's Taylor Meeks.
Meredith, who was named the conference's Wrestling ScholarAthlete of the Year earlier in the day, had won two matches earlier on Saturday by a combined score of 17-0, cruising Cal-Poly's J.T. Goodwin and Stanford's Mchael Sojka.
"These guys have wrestled each other before and you get to wrestle again, you know what the other guy's gonna do," Oregon State coach Jim Zalesky said of Meeks' victory.
"It's the little things. We rode (Meredith) out in the second period, and that really swung the match."
Meanwhile, Stauffer fell 10-4 to Bryce Hammond of CSU-Bakersfield in the 174-pound final, while Radford lost to Jake Swartz of Boise State, although his loss was an improvement on an earlier11-2 major decision.
The meet's outstanding wrestler was George Ivanov of Boise State, who took the 157-pound weight class by knocking off Oregon State's R.J. Pena 3-2 in the final.
Zalesky said he's pleased with the Beavers' back-to-back titles, although he knows the rest of the Pac-12 will keep improving.
"When you're on top, you want to stay on top, and you've got to work hard to stay there,
Zalesky said. "All these other teams are going to be chasing you."