No. 17 Oregon State Faces Stiff Tests Against U.C. Davis, Cal-Poly

OSU is coming off a weekend that saw the Beavers beat Arizona State 31-10 and Boise State 32-6 at Gill Coliseum.

OSU 133-pounder Bobby Pfennigs Photo: OSU Athletics

CORVALLIS - Oregon State continues a two-week battle with contenders for the Pacific-10 wrestling championship this weekend.

The 17th-ranked Beavers (13-1 overall, 5-0 Pac-10) wrestle dual meets at California-Davis (4-5 overall, 3-0 Pac-10) on Friday at 7:00 PM and at Cal Poly (4-6 overall, 4-1 Pac-10) on Sunday at 2:00 PM.

The dual at UCD is a “Brother vs. Brother” matchup of Beaver head coach Jim Zalesky and Aggie head coach Lenny Zalesky.

OSU is coming off a weekend that saw the Beavers beat Arizona State 31-10 and Boise State 32-6 at Gill Coliseum.

The Sun Devils and Broncos have combined to win the last seven Pac-10 titles, with ASU capturing the last two.

“I thought we wrestled well,” Jim Zalesky said of the victories over Arizona State and Boise State. “Even the matches we lost, we were in them and that’s where you want to be this time of year. We made a few mistakes here and there, but the matches we lost, I thought we were battling and fighting for it. I thought this was a good weekend. There were a lot of good things we could take out of it and work on this week to get more prepared for the Pac-10s down the road.”

This weekend’s trip to California-Davis and Cal Poly presents some different challenges.

“This is going on the road,” Zalesky said. “And it’s against probably the two top teams, the two teams who have the most experience back in the Pac-10 besides us. This will be a good test - on the road, versus these two opponents - to see where we are.

“I think it’s a little bit of a step up. I think Arizona State and Boise State maybe don’t have the teams they had last year, but Cal Poly and Cal-Davis both have pretty good, balanced teams. You look at the Pac-10 rankings and there are a lot of places where wrestlers (from OSU, UCD and CPU) are one-two in the rankings, so it’s a big weekend for rankings, too.”

OSU, which has won six straight dual meets, moved up two spots in this week’s National Wrestling Coaches Association poll.

Oregon State again has three wrestlers in this week’s national rankings.

Ty Watterson, who has a 20-4 record with six pins this season, moved up eight spots in the NWCA heavyweight rankings to No. 7 and climbed two spots in the Amateur Wrestling News rankings.

Watterson beat beat BSU’s Andy Patrick last week; Patrick had been ranked in the top 10 nationally.

Jeremy Larson, who is 22-5 with four pins at 174 pounds, is ranked No. 19 by the NWCA and No. 17 by AWN.

Kyle Larson, now 20-6 with seven pins at 141 pounds, is ranked No. 20 by the NWCA.

The pair of duals will match a number of wrestlers in this week’s Pac-10 rankings, which include six wrestlers at each weight, and most of those from the three schools are near the top of their lists.

At 125 pounds, UCD’s Marcos Orozco is second and OSU’s Jake Gonzales is fifth; at 133 pounds, CPU’s Darrell Vasquez is first, OSU’s Bobby Pfennigs is second and UCD’s Omar Gaitan is third.

At 141 pounds, UCD’s Derek Moore is first, OSU’s Kyle Larson is second and CPU’s Dave Roberts is fourth; at 149 pounds, OSU’s Derek Kipperberg is third, CPU’s Eric Maldonado is fifth and UCD’s Shawn Haratani is sixth.

At 157 pounds, CPU’s Chase Pami is third and OSU’s Keegan Davis is fifth; at 174 pounds, UCD’s Ken Cook is first, OSU’s Jeremy Larson is second and CPU’s Nick Hernandez is sixth; at 184 pounds, OSU’s Kyle Bressler is second and UCD’s Tyler Bernacchi is fifth; at 197 pounds, CPU’s Matt Monteiro is first, OSU’s Travis Gardner is third and UCD’s Eliot Kelly is sixth.

At heavyweight, CPU’s Cody Parker is first, OSU’s Ty Watterson is second and UCD’s Broc Maffia is sixth.

The Zalesky brothers have coached against each other twice before, with Jim’s Iowa teams taking a both duals against Lenny’s UCD teams.

“It was always fun,” Jim Zalesky said. “He came back once at Iowa, and I came out here two years ago. When we were in high school we competed against each other, and when we were in a tournament against each other we never forfeited against each other when we got thrown into the same bracket. We’d just go out there and wrestle.

“You’re brothers afterward, but when you’re competing, you’re competing. He’s trying to do his job and I’m trying to do my job.

“It makes it kind of fun that way, though.”

UC-Davis wrestled just once last weekend, winning at home against Cal State-Bakersfield 23-16; the Aggies will go against Oregon on Friday afternoon before wrestling the Beavers.

UCD has two nationally ranked wrestlers, as 141-pounder Derek Moore is ranked third by both the NWCA and AWN, 174-pounder Ken Cook is ranked fourth by the NWCA and sixth by AWN.

Cal Poly beat Cal State-Bakersfield 25-15 at home last weekend. The Mustangs have a busy weekend slated, wrestling at San Francisco State and Stanford on Friday and competing in the All-California Open on Saturday before greeting OSU.

CPU has four nationally ranked wrestlers, as 125-pounder Chad Mendes is ranked 11th by the NWCA and eighth by AWN, 133-pounder Darrell Vasquez is ranked sixth by the NWCA and fifth by AWN, 197-pounder Matt Monteiro is ranked 16th by the NWCA and 15th by AWN, and heavyweight Cody Parker is ranked 14th by the NWCA and seventh by AWN

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