Bear Hughes Wins World Team Trials Final, Qualifies for Junior Greco World Team

Cowboy freshmen Bear Hughes and Austin Harris won the Junior US Open about a month ago.

With those wins they were automatically dropped into the final of the World Team Trials Tournament and Friday were simply awaiting the winner of the tournament to see who they’d wrestle in a best-of-three series to decide who represents the US on the world team.

Hughes wrestled at 87 KG and Harris 97 KG. The winner of the trials tournament at 87 KG was Cameron Kaffey, a Michigan State wrestler who Hughes beat to win the US Open. Hughes dropped some bombs in the first match. He hit two headlocks in the first to go up 8-0 and finished off the second throw with a fall. In the second match he hit one other 4-point throw and picked up a tech fall at the 3:55-second mark of the match.

I’ve been pretty impressed with what I’ve seen from Hughes so far. He’s an in state kid from Coweta and I think was maybe a little under the radar as a recruit. He’s looked good at the US Open and throughout this summer. He may be a kid that OSU gets a little more out of than some expected. At these upper weights it usually takes a bit for these guys to physically mature to get competitive in college. He seems like he’s coming along and could be a solid asset for the program going forward.

Harris dropped two straight to Chad Porter of Arizona State. He lost the first match 8-3 and the second 9-3.

Next for Hughes is the Junior World Championships in Slovakia September 17-23.

This is big for him. OSU is pretty stacked at the upper weights next year, so it’s hard to see where he would slot in as a starter as a freshman. This gives him another goal, outlet, etc… to push himself over the summer for and can really help to develop him a lot in folkstyle as he eventually likely moves into the lineup for the Cowboys.