OSU Wrestling: Cowboys Drop Regular-Season Finale to Iowa 22-9

PHOTO GALLERY

STILLWATER — The Cowboys and Hawkeyes started Sunday’s dual going match for match, but after the intermission, it was all Iowa.

Oklahoma State dropped its first dual of the season Sunday, falling to the Hawkeyes 22-9. After four matches the dual was tied at 6, but the Pokes won just one match from that point on. The loss came in front of a sold-out Gallagher-Iba Arena crowd of 13,721.

“I wasn’t expecting that — that’s for damn sure,” OSU coach John Smith said. “Just not enough, for sure. I mean, just not enough. We’ve gotta have way more intensity. Intensity wasn’t there.”

Despite OSU being ranked ahead of the Hawkeyes in the team rankings (No. 2 vs. No. 4), the dual was split evenly on a match-by-match scale in terms of favorites. OSU had five wrestlers ranked higher than the guys they were wrestling. Iowa had five wrestlers ranked higher than the guys they were wrestling.

The dual went according to script up until 165 pounds when No. 7 Michael Caliendo beat No. 3 Izzak Olejnik. The two tangled at the NCAA Wrestling Championships last season when Olejnik was at Northern Illinois. Caliendo also got the better of Olejnik there.

It was a nightmare first period for Olejnik, as he got taken down twice and went into the second trailing 6-1. From there, the two traded escapes, and Caliendo swung the dual in the Hawkeyes’ favor with a 7-2 win.

That bout led to the only bonus-point match of the afternoon, where No. 7 Patrick Kennedy beat No. 21 Brayden Thompson, a true freshman, via a 12-3 major decision to give Iowa a 16-6 lead with three matches to go.

Smith said he was confident in his guys in the final three bouts, but Dustin Plott was the only of the group to pick up a win, handing Iowa freshman Gabe Arnold his first loss of his career with a 5-1 decision.

But Luke Surber then fell 4-1 in a match that was on a knife’s edge in the third period. A lengthy scramble nearly saw Surber catch Zach Glazier on his back, but after a few more moments of movement, Glazier secured the match-winning takedown.

Then just for good measure, Konner Doucet dropped his match to freshman Ben Kueter, 5-1.

“Got a team that’s been bruised up a little bit in Iowa and got tough coaches,” Smith said. “We hadn’t been bruised up. We have now. Let’s see what we can do from this point forward now. That teams been bruised up with a couple losses, and it showed. Lot of fight in them. Some of the matches where [it] seemed like we could’ve made the difference, they won.”

There was one major feel-good moment of the dual for the Pokes, as Daton Fix finished out his GIA career with a 7-2 win against Brody Teske. Fix finished his career at 36-0 in GIA. After the match, he took a bow at the corner of the mat.

PERFECTION. 36-0 AT GIA.

📺 : FS1#HomeOfWrestling | @_Greatest_Ever1 pic.twitter.com/CkOBRVYIHV

— OSU Cowboy Wrestling (@CowboyWrestling) February 25, 2024

“It was really special just to be able to wrestle again in front of the sold-out Gallagher-Iba,” Fix said. “Obviously, like Coach said, I wish we could’ve gave them more to cheer about, but I just wanted to thank all the fans for supporting me for my entire career. Hopefully I can finish the job here in a couple weeks and really give them something to cheer about at nationals.”

Victor Voinovich was an NCAA qualifier for Oklahoma State at 149 pounds last season, but he made a return to GIA as a Hawkeye on Sunday, wrestling in place of an absent Caleb Rathjen. Voinovich had a competitive match with redshirt freshman Jordan Williams, a match Williams won 7-3. Williams secured takedowns in the first and third periods, and after the final buzzer, Williams broke out some sort of dance that the GIA crowd approved of.

Ice in his veins.

📺: FS1#HomeOfWrestling | #GoPokes pic.twitter.com/0TVxOJt1pZ

— OSU Cowboy Wrestling (@CowboyWrestling) February 25, 2024

So that’s it for the Cowboys’ regular season. The young group will now prep for the Big 12 Wrestling Championships in Tulsa, scheduled for March 9 and 10 in the BOK Center.

“We just need to grow up a little bit,” Smith said. “Learn some lessons from it and go kick ass in the Big 12 — get back on track.”

Results

John Smith’s Post-Dual Availability

Daton Fix’s Post-Dual Availability