The #4 Oklahoma State Cowboys sent four starters and thirteen reserves to Illinois to compete at the Cougar Clash hosted by Southern Illinois University. It was a last minute add to the schedule, and appeared to be an attempt to get most of their reserves some mat time, while letting the starters that have not dominated the chance to pick up some confidence against mostly average competition, and potentially seeing who will be the guy at 133 for the future. As was done last year, starters were allowed to wear the traditional orange singlet, while backups wore plain black singlets.
There were eight teams entered, highlighted by Little Rock, Missouri and Northern Iowa. Like OSU, several teams sat some of their best wrestlers, but there were still some decent matchups. The Pokes finished as runner up, with 187 team points and three champions (five finalists). Northern Iowa won the tournament with 190 team points, and also three champs (six finalists) Here’s how it shook out. Seeds, not rankings, in parentheses.
125: OSU entered Senior (9) Gary Steen who is normally a 133 pounder. After a first round 2-0 loss to (1) Trever Anderson (Northern Iowa), Steen went on a 4-0 run to place 3rd. His best win was 2-0 against (2) Mack Mauger (Missouri).
133: OSU unloaded the room and entered four(!) of their guys, including the usual starter, (1) Richard Figueroa, who has struggled moving up from 125. After going up 7-0 in the first period, Figueroa lost his first-round match to (8) Garret Rinkin (Northern Iowa), then forfeited out the backside. Other Cowboy wrestlers were (3) Ronnie Ramirez, (5) Sam Smith and (9) Rin Sakamoto. True Freshman Ramirez continued to impress, going 4-0, including a 5-1 win over Julian Farber (Norther Iowa), and taking 1st. This runs his record to 6-1 on the year, with his only loss coming to the very, very good Drake Ayala (Iowa) in Sudden Victory. It’s hard to see how he can’t be the guy going forward. Smith lost his first match, won two, lost to the aforementioned Farber, then won the 5th place match against (6) Jackson Tucker (UALR). Rin Sakamoto has been someone that a lot of fans were excited to see compete, but he did not have a good day going 0-2 and out early. As an excellent international freestyle wrestler, it was not shocking he struggled on bottom, but more surprisingly, he did not seem to show elite talent on his feet against mostly ho hum competition. He is young, so he has time to improve.