Five Takeaways from Oklahoma State’s Stretch at the National Duals Invitational

BRACKET
SATURDAY MATCH-BY-MATCH RESULTS
SATURDAY TAKEAWAYS
SUNDAY MATCH-BY-MATCH RESULTS

TULSA — With a lineup that now includes six freshmen, the Cowboys finished third at the National Duals Invitational and take home a purse of $150,000.

Oklahoma State dropped its dual to Iowa 18-16 in the semifinals before clobbering Nebraska 33-6 in the third-place match. Here are five takeaways from a fun weekend in the BOK Center.

1. The Cowboys Are Right There with Iowa

Oklahoma State hasn’t beaten Iowa in a wrestling dual since 2019 when a Nick Piccininni pin nearly blew the top off Gallagher-Iba Arena.

The Cowboys took another loss to the Hawkeyes on Sunday, but they were right there.

Seven of the dual’s 10 matches were decided within a takedown, with three of those going into sudden victory.

You could cherry pick spots where the outcome could’ve been different. Troy Spratley was in on a leg with a lead late in his match when he probably pushed a little too hard for another takedown and ended up giving up one. Alex Facudno took Patrick Kennedy into sudden-victory. Cody Merrill gave up a late takedown in the third to lose 4-3. Razor-thin margins.

The Cowboys and Hawkeyes will go at it again on Feb. 22, OSU’s last dual of the season. And it’ll be in Stillwater. OSU-Iowa duals always carry weight to them, but the one in February feels like it could be another all-timer in front of a rowdy Gallagher-Iba Arena.

2. Lockett Beats Caliendo

Perhaps the most-hyped potential matchup of this weekend for the Cowboys was what Dee Lockett would look like up against Iowa’s Mikey Caliendo, the reigning national runner-up and a three-time All-American.

Well, Lockett scored two takedowns on the Hawkeye and won the match 7-3.

“Dee’s a winner,” Taylor said. “He has been his entire life. He’s gotten tested now really early. All of our freshmen have been tested pretty significantly early. All of them maybe different ways, different opponents, Caliendo is really tough. I thought Dee did a great job.

“In a tough dual where things are going up and down, for him to be able to still go out there, keep his focus, I thought that’s the best match he’s wrestled this year against the best opponent he’s wrestled this year.”

The king of the 165-pound hill is Penn State’s Mitchell Mesenbrink, and — last year anyways — Mesenbrink’s only true threat was Caliendo. The two wrestled for a Big Ten title, where Mesenbrink won 4-1. Then they met in the national final, and Mesenbrink won 8-2.

This Lockett win doesn’t mean he’s instantly on Mesenbrink’s level, but it does mean that Lockett at the very least will be competing for a spot to wrestle the last 165-pound match of the season as a true freshman. And Lockett will probably only get better as he continues to compile experience.

“I think it was a great match, and it just proved to myself that these coaches are putting me in the right positions and doing the right things to make me the best and that I have the best partners for the next three years to come,” Lockett said. “It just showed me that I can win every match close whether it’s a good guy or a bad guy, and I can always score.”

3. Vega Adds to His Mantle

After picking up the first Top 10 win of his career on Saturday night, freshman 141-pounder Sergio Vega added two more such wins to his resume Sunday, beating No. 9 Nasir Bailey 3-0 and No. 2 Brock Hardy, the reigning NCAA runner-up, via a 13-2 major decision.

It’s not just that Vega is winning these matches — he wrestles a fun, scramble-centric style. Hardy couldn’t handle the funk, as Vega scrambled his way to four takedowns against the three-time All-American.

Through his first five college matches — three of which came against Top 10 guys — Vega has outscored his foes a combined 39-3. That’s crazy.

4. Facundo Went Through a Gauntlet

Alex Facundo might’ve not had the cleanest of weekends, but it just so happened that every team the Cowboys took on this weekend had a Top 5 guy at 174 pounds.

Here’s what he was up against:

No. 3 Simon Ruiz (Cornell) — 2-0 loss
No. 5 Matty Singleton (NC State) — loss by fall in the third period of a tight match
No. 2 Patrick Kennedy (Iowa) — 4-1 loss in sudden victory
No. 4 Chris Minto (Nebraska) — 2-1 victory

So, while Facundo went 1-3 this weekend, he was right there scrapping with the best guys at his weight. This also comes after Facundo wrestled just five college matches over the past two seasons.

He was in on shots all weekend but finishing against that type of competition is no easy feat.

“He’s just gotta get back in routine,” Taylor said. “He just hasn’t been in routine in a while, and you can see him working through those things. Him and Zack (Ryder) both, I think him and Zack — and Casey (Swiderski), all three of them really — you can see them just working through things throughout the weekend. Man, it’s tough. It’s tough.

“The weekend didn’t go maybe the way they wanted it to, but that didn’t change their output. You can easily feel sorry for yourself, and they didn’t. They stepped right back out there, and they kept firing. That’s what I want out of these guys.”

5. Growth Opportunity

In some ways, it was sort of a bummer that OSU on Sunday went up against two teams it will face later in the year.

But in another way, with how young this team is, we’ll be able to track just how much growth has happened between now and the next time OSU takes on Nebraska and Iowa.

Nebraska wasn’t at full strength Sunday, but the Cornhuskers will welcome OSU to Lincoln on Dec. 21, while OSU hosts Iowa on Feb. 22.

If this is how good all these freshmen are two weeks into their respective college careers, I’m excited to see what they’ll look like with months of experience under their belts.

“We’re gonna only get better, especially when you consider how young our team is,” Taylor said. “We’re just gonna keep getting better, and I’m excited about that. …

“I don’t know that our freshmen are wrestling inexperienced right now. They’re definitely stepping out there with the expectation to go out there and kick butt. That’s just awesome. Everyone’s got areas they gotta get better in. A lot of times it’s just how do you compartmentalize things that you’re working on vs. the things that you’re really good at already, balancing wrestling really good competition but understanding this is still very early in the season. I think there’s a lot that goes on for these kids. You try and keep it simple for them, and they got a lot of tests this weekend, which is good. The more tests we get as a program, the more adjustments that we can make, I know we’ll just keep getting better.”

David Taylor after Sunday’s Action