The Cowboys had the team title secured before the conference finals started. They dropped the two headliner matches, but dominated the rest of them taking 4 of 6 finals matches in the Big 12 tournament. As a whole it was a pretty good final round and good tournament overall.
Here are our breakdowns for Session 1, Session 2 and Session 3.
Nick Piccinnini didn’t take much time to win his second straight Big 12 title at 125 as he pinned NCAA runner up Zeke Moisey at 1:11 into the first period. There’s not a ton of analysis you can do with that, but when you pin a NCAA finalist that quick it’s a good thing. Good tournament for Nick.
To me Brock-Gross was probably the most exciting match of the weekend. Ton of offense, lots of points and Brock was in every bit of that match. If you don’t follow wrestling closely Seth Gross is probably a guy you’d put in the top 5 pound-for-pound category, so to see Brock push him as he did was positive. For those that do follow closely Gross scored on some funky stuff, hit a merkle at one point, and scored on some counters, but Brock had some offense that was really good and worked well on Gross. He also didn’t take down, which was good to see. In the third they were in an exchange where Brock needed to score to win and gave up a TD, but this was a very close match.
Unfortunately, Dean Heil dropped the much-anticipated rematch with Bryce Meredith. Dean took a good shot early and scored, also had a reverse late where he nearly put Meredith on his back to win. Meredith ultimately had more offense and scoring to take the match. It’s still a deep weight though where a lot of crazy stuff could happen at the NCAA tournament. It will be really interesting to see how he does there.
Boo Lewallen has looked great at the end of this season. He truly dominated Max Thomsen, who was an All-American last year, with a 9-3 decision winning his first Big 12 title. His ankle pick is really good, he seems to be able to hit it from anywhere. Before Boo became eligible to start I followed him pretty closely and he was dominant early in the season. He hit a bit of a lull mid-season and didn’t wrestle as well, but he really seems to be peaking at the right time.
Chandler Rogers put Andrew Fogarty on his back early, but couldn’t hang on for the fall. He went back and forth with him in the rest of the match not closing it out like you’d prefer, but picked up the 12-9 decision to win his first Big 12 title.
If I’m being really honest the Big 12 is not very good at 285. Derek White did what he was supposed to do and dominated his way to a title there, though. If anyone would’ve projected last year that Derek White would be the Big 12 champ at heavyweight this year give me a call and we can go to Vegas together some time because what he’s done at heavyweight has been incredible.
Big 12 Finals Results
125: No. 1 Nick Piccininni (Oklahoma State) WBF over No. 3 Zeke Moisey (West Virginia)
133: No. 1 Seth Gross (South Dakota State) DEC 8-5 over No. 3 Kaid Brock (Oklahoma State)
141: No. 1 Bryce Meredith (Wyoming) DEC 6-5 over No. 2 Dean Heil (Oklahoma State)
149: No. 2 Boo Lewallen (Oklahoma State) DEC 9-3 over No. 1 Max Thomsen (Northern Iowa)
165: No. 2 Chandler Rogers (Oklahoma State) DEC 12-9 over No. 4 Andrew Fogarty (North Dakota State)
285: No. 1 Derek White (Oklahoma State) DEC 13-6 over No. 3 AJ Nevills (Fresno State)
Final Team Standings
1. Oklahoma State – 137
2. Northern Iowa – 96.5
3. South Dakota State – 94
4. Wyoming – 82.5
5. North Dakota State – 57
6. Oklahoma – 52
7. Iowa State – 51
8. Utah Valley – 50.5
9. West Virginia – 50
10. Northern Colorado – 30.5
11. Fresno State – 26.5
12. Air Force – 22.5
