Wrestling Rankings Update Following Oklahoma State’s Win Against Iowa

The Cowboys’ regular season came to a close Sunday night when the Pokes throttled Iowa in Gallagher-Iba Arena.

With the final weekend of the regular season in the books, rankings updated around the country. Across Intermat, Flo and WIN, Oklahoma State has nine guys within the top eight of their respective weight class in at least one of the rankings. A top eight finish come March is enough for a wrestler to earn All-America status.

Here’s how those services see the Cowboys’ lineup entering the postseason.

Spratley’s win against Dean Peterson flipped the two on Intermat and Flo, with Spratley moving up from No. 7 to No. 6 and Peterson doing the inverse.

Jax Forrest is up to his highest rank as a college wrestler at No. 5, per Intermat and Flo. It’s still not entirely representative of Forrest’s skill level, but him starting at the semester has him playing some catch up to the others.

As fun as the national tournament will be at 133 pounds, it’ll also be a fun weight class in Tulsa at Big 12s. Flo lists Iowa State’s Evan Frost and Arizona State’s Kyler Larkin above Forrest in the weight class, which should make for a fun final few rounds in Tulsa.

Dee Lockett fell to No. 4 following his first loss of the season, as he now sits behind No. 1 Mitchell Mesenbrink (Penn State), No. 2 Joey Blaze (Purdue) and No. 3 Mikey Caliendo (Iowa).

That group of four will be interesting to track as it pertains to seeding for the NCAA Tournament. Mesenbrink, Blaze and Caliendo will, in some form or another, work out their order at the Big Ten Tournament. Thus far this season, Mesenbrink and Blaze are both unbeaten. Both have a win over Caliendo. How Lockett fits in will be a bit of a wildcard should the Cowboy win Big 12s. Lockett and Caliendo have split matches this season.

Cody Merrill has made steady progress up Flo’s ranking of the 197-pound weight class. At the start of the calendar year, Flo had him at No. 8 at the weight, and now he has incrementally climbed his way to No. 5.

We’ll dive deeper into a preview of the Big 12 Championships next week, but taking Intermat’s rankings, here are the Top 5 guys at each weight who are expected to be in Tulsa next weekend:

125
No. 6 Troy Spratley (Oklahoma State)
No. 10 Stevo Poulin (Iowa State)
No. 11 Jett Strickenberger (West Virginia)
No. 19 Koda Holeman (Cal Poly)
No. 20 Ezekiel Witt (North Dakota State)

133
No. 4 Evan Frost (Iowa State)
No. 5 Jax Forrest (Oklahoma State)
No. 6 Kyler Larkin (Arizona State)
No. 11 Dominick Serrano (Northern Colorado)
No. 19 Gunner Andrick (West Virginia)

141
No. 2 Sergio Vega (Oklahoma State)
No. 3 Anthony Echemendia (Iowa State)
No. 16 Julian Tagg (South Dakota State)
No. 20 Haiden Drury (Utah Valley)
No. 21 Pierson Manville (Arizona State)

149
No. 9 Casey Swiderski (Oklahoma State)
No. 10 David Evans (Utah Valley)
No. 12 Jacob Frost (Iowa State)
No. 13 Maxwell Peterson (North Dakota State)
No. 20 Joshua Edmond (Missouri)

157
No. 5 Landon Robideau (Oklahoma State)
No. 6 Kaleb Larkin (Arizona State)
No. 7 Vince Zerban (Iowa State)
No. 8 Ty Watters (West Virginia)
No. 15 Teague Travis (Missouri)

165
No. 4 Dee Lockett (Oklahoma State)
No. 6 Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa)
No. 12 Nicco Ruiz (Arizona State)
No. 14 Connor Euton (Iowa State)
No. 25 J Conway (Missouri)

174
No. 7 Alex Facundo (Oklahoma State)
No. 8 Carter Schubert (Oklahoma)
No. 9 Cam Steed (Missouri)
No. 12 MJ Gaitan (Iowa State)
No. 13 Jared Simma (Northern Iowa)

184
No. 3 Aeoden Sinclair (Missouri)
No. 9 Zack Ryder (Oklahoma State)
No. 10 Brian Soldano (Oklahoma)
No. 11 Eddie Neitenbach (Wyoming)
No. 12 Isaac Dean (Iowa State)

197
No. 2 Rocky Elam (Iowa State)
No. 3 Joey Novak (Wyoming)
No. 6 Bennett Berge (South Dakota State)
No. 7 Cody Merrill (Oklahoma State)
No. 12 DJ Parker (Oklahoma)

HWT
No. 1 Yonger Bastida (Iowa State)
No. 7 Konner Doucet (Oklahoma State)
No. 11 Christian Caroll (Wyoming)
No. 13 David Szuba (Arizona State)
No. 21 Juan Mora (Oklahoma)

Big 12 Championships

When: March 6-7
Where: BOK Center in Tulsa