Beavers put Five in Finals; Lead Pac-10 Wrestling Meet

Five Beavers have assured themselves a place at the NCAA Championships.

Salem-News.com SPORTS

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Five Oregon State wrestlers have advanced to the championship finals and the Beavers are the team leaders after Saturday’s first day of the Pacific-10 Championships at the Icardo Center.

Going after individual conference titles for OSU on Sunday evening will be 125-pounder Eric Stevenson, 133-pounder Bobby Pfennigs, 149-pounder Derek Kipperberg, 174-pounder Jeremy Larson and heavyweight Ty Watterson.

OSU, ranked 16th nationally, finished the first day of the two-day meet with 92 points; California-Davis is in second place with 74.5 points and Cal Poly is third with 71.5 points. The tournament concludes with two more sessions on Sunday.

“It was a good day,” OSU head coach Jim Zalesky said. “We won a lot of matches in the last 20 seconds … those (semifinal) matches at 125 pounds, 133 pounds, 149 pounds – we won those in the last seconds of each match, and that’s where training hard and all the hard work pay off, at the end of those close matches.”

Sunday’s first session at 11:00 AM will include the wrestleback semifinals and the fifth-place finals; the second session at 5:30 PM will include the third-place finals and the championship finals.

Sunday’s action at the Pac-10 tournament can be followed on the internet by going to www.gorunners.com, then clicking on the tab labeled “Pacific-10 Wrestling Tournament Central.”

Live video streaming of the tourney will be available at www.pac-10.org.

By reaching the championship finals, the five Beavers have assured themselves a place at the NCAA Championships.

The top three wrestlers at each weight class, plus nine wild cards selected from across the 10 weight classes by the conference coaches, will advance to the national meet March 15th-17th in Detroit, Mich.

Still alive in the wrestleback bracket with the potential to place as high as third for OSU are 157-pounder Keegan Davis, 184-pounder Kyle Bressler and 197-pounder Travis Gardner.

“Now we’ve got to have a good day on Sunday and wrap up the title,” Zalesky said. “Nothing is wrapped up yet. In tournaments like this, you’ve got to wrestle better each day.”

Wins by Kipperberg, Davis and Gardner over UCD wrestlers who had beaten them in a dual meet earlier this month proved pivotal in OSU building its lead in the team race.

“Those were huge for us,” Zalesky said.

OSU 141-pounder Kyle Larson, ranked 18th nationally and seeded third in the meet, lost both his matches on Saturday.

Larson is still trying to recover from a knee injury suffered near the end of the dual meet season.

“Kyle was beat up,” Zalesky said. “He tried, but he just didn’t have it; he just couldn’t do anything. It was a tough way for his season to end.”

Watterson, ranked fifth nationally and seeded first in the Pac-10 meet, won three matches Saturday – including a pin and a major decision – to reach the finals for the second straight season.

Watterson will seek his first Pac-10 title against third-seeded Cody Parker of Cal Poly; Parker is ranked 12th nationally.

Larson, ranked 17th nationally and seeded second in the meet, is also in the finals for the second straight season after earning a pair of wins, including a technical fall.

He’ll go against top-seeded Ken Cook of UC-Davis, who is ranked fourth nationally.

Stevenson, seeded second, also had a pin among his three victories.

He’ll wrestle in the finals against Tanner Gardner of Stanford, who is seeded first and is ranked third nationally.

Pfennigs, another Beaver seeded second, advanced to the finals with a pair of decisions.

His opponent in the finals will be top-seeded Darrell Vasquez of Cal Poly, who is ranked sixth nationally.

Kipperberg, seeded third, upset second-seeded Brandon Doyle of Cal State-Bakersfield 6-5 in the semifinals to reach the final.

Kipperberg will wrestle for the championship against Morgan Atkinson of Cal State-Fullerton, who is seeded first and is ranked 11th nationally.

OREGON STATE AT PACIFIC-10 CHAMPIONSHIPS – DAY ONE

TEAM SCORES: 1. Oregon State 92; 2. California-Davis 74.5; 3. Cal Poly 71.5; 4. Cal State-Bakersfield 68.5; 5. Stanford 62.5; 6. Arizona State 60.5; 7. Cal State-Fullerton 51.0; 8. (tie) Boise State and Oregon, 44.5; 10. Portland State 5.5.

OREGON STATE RESULTS

(Current National Wrestling Coaches Association national rankings in parentheses)

125, NO. 2 SEED ERIC STEVENSON – Pinned Brad Caldwell, PSU, 3:31 in preliminary round; dec. over Josh Obregon, CPU, 4-0 in quarterfinals; dec. over No. 3 seed John Espinoza, ASU, 4-2 in semifinals.

133, NO. 2 SEED BOBBY PFENNIGS – Dec. over Levi Jones, BSU, 6-3 in quarterfinals; dec. over No. 3 seed Omar Gaitan, UCD, 4-3 in semifinals.

141, NO. 3 SEED (18) KYLE LARSON – Dec. by No. 6 seed Teddy Astorga, CSUF, 4-2 in quarterfinals; dec. by Robert Galvan, ASU, 11-5 in wrestleback quarterfinals.

149, NO 3 SEED DEREK KIPPERBERG – Dec. over No. 6 seed Shawn Haratani, UCD, 8-3 in quarterfinals; dec. over No. 2 seed Brandon Doyle, CSUB, 6-5 in semifinals.

157, KEEGAN DAVIS – Dec. by No. 3 seed Chase Pami, CPU, 10-4 in preliminary round; dec. over Kyle Bounds, UO, 9-5 in wrestleback preliminary round; dec. over No. 5 seed Jon Clark, UCD, 3-2 in wrestleback quarterfinals.

165, NO. 6 SEED BRETT ARAND – Major dec. by Daniel Atondo, CSUB, 16-6 in preliminary round; dec. over Jake McCoy, UO, 6-4 in wrestleback preliminary round; dec. by No. 4 seed Bryan Tice, CSUF, 10-8 in wrestleback quarterfinals.

174, NO. 2 SEED (17) JEREMY LARSON – Tech. fall over Brian Lemmon, PSU, 20-4 (time n/a) in quarterfinals; dec. over No. 3 seed Nate Lee, BSU, 3-1 in semifinals.

184, NO. 4 SEED KYLE BRESSLER – Dec. over No. 5 seed Luke Smith, BSU, 4-2 in quarterfinals; dec. by No. 1 seed Greg Gifford, ASU, 6-2 in semifinals.

197, NO. 5 SEED TRAVIS GARDNER – Pinned No. 4 seed Eliot Kelly, UCD, 5:11 in quarterfinals; major dec. by No. 1 seed (17) Matt Monteiro, CPU, 12-3 in semifinals.

HWT, NO. 1 SEED (5) TY WATTERSON – Pinned Phil Doerner, SU, 2:18 in preliminary round; dec. Broc Maffia, UCD, 4-1 in quarterfinals; major dec. over No. 5 seed Colton Nichols, CSUB, 13-5 in semifinals.

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