19TH-RANKED OSU WRESTLERS PLACE SECOND AT SHERIDAN TOURNEY

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Oregon State got individual titles from Jason Buce at 118 pounds and Oscar Wood at 134 pounds as the 19th-ranked Beaver wrestlers placed second in the 16-team Sheridan Tournament on Saturday.
The Beavers return home next weekend to wrestle Portland State at noon Saturday, Southern Oregon at 2 p.m. Saturday and Cal Poly- San Luis Obispo at 2 p.m. Sunday.
OSU (1-1 overall duals) had wrestlers place in the top five at all but two weight classes at the Sheridan Tournament and finished four points behind first-place Rider, 123-119. Oklahoma, the nation's 11th-ranked team, was third with 96 1/2 points.
Placing third for OSU were Jake Whisenhunt at 126 pounds and Jason Gutches at 167 pounds; placing fourth was Mat Orndorff at heavyweight; and placing fifth were Isaac Wood at 150 pounds, Clint Wilson at 177 and Sanders Freed at 190.
"The biggest thing I was encouraged by was that we wrestled well later in the day," said OSU coach Joe Wells, whose team had trailed Rider 111-96 going into the finals. "Everyone else was tired and we looked fresh, we continued to score a lot of pins and technical pins. We were doing a good job when everybody else was content with a one-point win."
Buce and Wood both improved to 6-0 on the season with four wins Saturday. Both also recorded two pins in the tournament, and Buce now has four pins among his six victories.
Buce's last pin came in breathtaking fashion, in overtime against Rider's John Carvalheira.
"That was great - really exciting," Wells said. "And Oscar wrestled really well. He looked really, really tough and he picked up his intensity to a whole new level."
The Beavers at the upper weights began pulling their performance level closer to that of their lighter teammates.
"Jason Gutches, Clint Wilson and Sanders Freed all came on later in the day and started doing some nice executing of their techniques. It was nice to see that," Wells said. "It was a surprisingly good competition. There were some good teams, and it was more mat-oriented wrestling. It was a good opportunity for us to test ourselves against this East Coast style of wrestling."
The Beavers had a chance to tie Rider for the title but heavyweight Mat Orndorff suffered a knee injury in his third-place match. Had Orndorff, who was leading 8-0 in the third period, managed a pin, then OSU would have pulled even with Rider.
In the semifinals, Orndorff had taken No. 1-seeded Jason Gleasman of Syracuse into overtime before losing 6-4. Gleasman was an Olympian at 220 pounds this past summer.
"That was a real good test for Mat," Wells said. "Now he knows he's as good as any of those guys."
Wells said Orndorff's knee injury did not appear serious. Both Orndorff and 158-pounder Jim Kutz, who hurt a knee against Lehigh on Friday, will be examined in Corvallis to determine whether they can wrestle next weekend.

TEAM SCORES AT SHERIDAN TOURNAMENT
[1-5] Rider 123, Oregon State 119, Oklahoma 96 1/2, Lehigh 95 1/2, Syracuse 60
[6-10] Army 52, Bloomsburg 49 1/2, North Carolina State 43 1/2, Bucknell 41 1/2, Rutgers 41
[11-16] Drexel 39 1/2, Hofstra 39, James Madison 30 1/2, Brown 28 1/2, Duke 8, East Stroudsburg 2.

OREGON STATE PLACERS AT SHERIDAN TOURNAMENT
118
126
134
142
150
158
167
177
190
HWT		 1. Jason Buce; pinned John Carvalheira, Rider, in 7:39 of championship match
3. Jake Whisenhunt; dec. Doug Detrick, James Madison, 6-0 in third-place match
1. Oscar Wood; dec. Ed Hockenberry, Bloomsburg, 16-3 in championship match
No placer
5. Isaac Wood; dec. Brad Fenske, Army, 5-3 in fifth-place match
No placer
3. Jason Gutches; pinned Rob Anspach, Hofstra, in 3:51 of third-place match
5. Clint Wilson; dec. Dan Campanella, North Carolina State, 7-3 in fifth-place match
5. Sanders Freed; dec. John Johnson, Brown, 5-2 in fifth-place match
4. Mat Orndorff; lost by injury default to Trey Swan, Oklahoma, in third-place match


[OSU Wrestling 1997]
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