Oregon State greets Cal Poly as dual meet season
heads into final two weekends of action
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1
Cal Poly at Gill Coliseum; 11 a.m.
Oregon State (8-8 overall, 6-2 Pacific-10) continues its journey toward the Pacific-10 Championships with another conference dual this weekend, hosting Cal Poly (8-6, 4-1) on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Gill Coliseum. Once again, it's all about the seeding.
"Most definitely," OSU head coach Joe Wells said. "There are some weight classes in this meet where it's real important that we get out and get after it."
The Beavers have two wrestlers in the national rankings this week. Heavyweight Andy Bowlby stayed on the charts, slipping one spot to 12th in the Amateur Wrestling News rankings and dropping two spots to 11th on the InterMat list. He was joined by Jed Pennell, who is ranked 20th by Amateur Wrestling News at 184 pounds. Pennell, a 165-pounder, has been wrestling up two weight classes but has posted a 4-0 record with one pin and a win over a nationally-ranked wrestler.
Oregon State is coming off a weekend that saw its biggest win of the season - an 18-16 upset of eighth-ranked Arizona State - followed by a 23-12 loss to 19th-ranked Boise State the next afternoon. It was a huge step forward, followed by a small step back for an OSU squad that had shown steady improvement through the month of January.
The win over the Sun Devils came after Oregon State had taken nationally-ranked Wisconsin and Central Michigan down to the final match before losing duals earlier in the month.
"We talked about that - how we'd come close to a number of good teams. It was a big step for us to actually prevail over Arizona State at home," said Wells, who saw the Beavers win the night's final three matches for the victory. "Now we've got to sustain that over two or three matches. This team is putting it in perspective ... there are a lot of good teams out there, and they're not far from being one of them."
Wells pointed to good efforts by OSU's seniors against ASU, and said the Beavers had some against Boise State, as well.
"We just didn't sustain the effort," Wells said. "It boils down to execution, maintaining good position and focusing on the basics. Boise State took it to us more than we took it to them and, in some cases, we came up short in the end. We need to get a little better defensively, but I liked our fight and the way we competed."
The Beavers get another chance against a Cal Poly squad that has received votes in the last several NWCA Top 25 polls but hasn't cracked the rankings. Four weights in particular look like key contests: 125 pounds, 184 pounds, 197 pounds and heavyweight.
At 125 pounds, the Pac-10's preseason rankings had OSU's Michael Delaney fifth and CPU's Vic Moreno sixth. Moreno has posted an 18-6 record with one pin and moved into the national rankings, while Delaney is 7-11; a win would boost Delaney's stock going into the Pac-10 Championships.
The 184-pound matchup offers several possibilities. The Mustangs' Ryan Halsey was ranked third in the conference's preseason rankings and he's 20-6 with four pins this season. He could face the Beavers' Dan Pitsch, who is coming off an injury but was ranked fourth in the Pac-10; or Halsey may meet giant-killer Pennell. Even though he's wrestling at 184 pounds, Pennell still has to make weight at 165 pounds for each meet to retain the possibility of going back to that weight later in the season.
The 197-pound match pits the top two wrestlers in the Pac-10's preseason rankings. David Schenk of Cal Poly, who is 22-6 with three pins, is ranked first in the Pac-10 and is also ranked nationally; OSU's Jason Lovell is ranked second in the Pac-10 with a 13-9 record and one pin.
At heavyweight, Bowlby is ranked fourth in the Pac-10; he's 21-6 with 10 pins after having an 11-match win streak snapped last weekend with losses to a pair of nationally-ranked wrestlers. CPU's Dan Howe is ranked fifth in the conference with a record of 14-6 and four pins.
Cal Poly won all three of its dual meets last weekend, going on the road to beat California-Davis 22-15, San Francisco State 32-4 and Stanford 35-12; the Mustangs then placed sixth at the California Collegiate Tournament. CPU has two wrestlers in this week's national rankings, as 125-pounder Vic Moreno is ranked 11th by AWN and eight by IM and 197-pounder David Schenk is ranked 18th by AWN and 19th by IM.
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